As Time Goes By
by BouncingKappa
Summary: Sequel to Songbirds and Bombshells! Sadie Reid disappeared in 1949, never to be seen again until she resurfaces in 2016 with no memory of how she got there and one clue: the dog tags of her supposedly dead fiance, Bucky Barnes. Bucky is in Wakanda hoping for a chance at the freshest start he can get. Love found them once in the unlikeliest place, can it bring them together again?
1. Sympathy for the Devil

**A/N: Hello all! So, for anyone who doesn't already know, this story is the sequel to my story **_**Songbirds and Bombshells**_**. If you haven't already read S&B I highly, highly suggest you go check it out before starting in on this story! For those of you familiar with Sadie and her story...can you believe I made to the sequel? Because. I can't. Fair warning - there are a lot of pieces I'm moving on the board early on and I'm still getting comfortable with this new host of characters so please, be kind!**

**Before I get into it I have to give extra love to Mopargirl1 and Not Enough Answers for walking me off my ledge and to my beta-extraordinaire Stencil Your Heart, who never berates me for my bad comma usage. Oh! And all of the chapter titles will be named after songs, this one coming from the Rolling Stones!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the **_**MCU**_** but gosh if I did...**

**Chapter 1 - Sympathy for the Devil**

_A series of photographs stood on a spotless white mantle, set above a handsome but modest fireplace. Rays of the morning sun flooded through the gaps in the curtains, throwing the set of frames in sharp relief. The location where each photograph was taken was as varied as the subjects contained within. A portrait of a handsome, middle-aged navy medical officer sat next to a family huddled on an aging sofa in a cramped apartment. The far end showed three young women all on bicycles, dressed in fitted sweaters and high-waisted shorts. Had the picture been in color it would have showed their brunette, red, and blonde hair, respectively. Another picture showed a motley crew of men in mismatched military uniforms, grinning broadly in front of a mostly-crumbled building._

_Two photographs in particular stood out from the rest. The first revealed two young men standing in front of Ebbets Field. Dressed casually in slacks and wide ties, both young men grinned broadly for the camera. The shorter of the two men held a foul ball in his hand up for the camera, revealing the end of a perfect day. Next to it, the middle frame depicted a couple standing together, not looking at the camera. Instead the couple stared at each other, beaming and seemingly unaware that they were the camera's subjects. The man had a protective hand at her mid back and he wore his military dress uniform with distinction. But he couldn't take his eyes of the woman next to him, dressed in floor length ivory lace. Her abundant dark hair was styled away from her beautiful face, crowned with a simple juliet cap veil that had once been worn by her mother. One thing was clear from the photograph - the subject couple couldn't have been happier._

_The fireplace looked out into a sitting room that had one door leading to a kitchen and the other down a narrow hallway to two bedrooms. Depending on the morning, the small apartment could be bursting with activity. Some mornings the lady of the house came in from an overnight shift at the hospital or her husband was up reviewing intelligence reports while he tried not to burn his toast and make coffee all at the same time. There were mornings where they worked in seamless unison, fixing each other their breakfast and trading snippets of their coming day. Other mornings were lazy, punctuated by soft laughter and refusals to get out of bed for the whole day. Some days she woke him in the early hours to make love and others he practically had to bribe her out of bed with the promise of fresh coffee. _

_Visitors were a frequent occurrence at the small apartment and on this particular early October morning, company was due to arrive at any minute. _

"_Sade, what the hell are you doing?" A voice drifted down the hall from the master bedroom and into the kitchen. A woman stood at the kitchen counter with a cold glass of orange juice while she picked through a bowl of fresh fruit, looking for the best apple of the bunch. "Sadie?"_

_The swinging door opened and she looked up to see a man amble in only to put his hands on his hips and drop his head with an exaggerated sigh of disappointment. He wore a pair of dark grey slacks and a white undershirt that betrayed his broad shoulders and tapered waist. He raked his fingers through his chestnut hair and looked up, raising an eyebrow at his wife. _

"_I was thirsty," said Sadie Barnes simply, a humorous light dancing in her eyes. _

_Bucky groaned at her flippant attitude and Sadie's lips drew into a mischievous smile. Drumming his fingers on his hips, he seemed to debate what to say next and how much trouble he might get into for it. "How many times are we going to have this conversation?" _

_She smiled in earnest now, flashing him as many of her pearly whites as she could. Shifting her weight, she turned away from him and finally found the perfect apple nestled amongst the others in a pewter bowl on the counter, a wedding gift from one of her mother's friends. "Oh, I'd say probably once a day for about the next two weeks?" She drawled, not even remotely concerned by his exasperated sigh. _

_Instead, Sadie padded to the sink where she rinsed and dried off her apple. Bucky pinched the bridge of his nose and stole another glance at his headstrong wife who waggled her eyebrows humorously. The corners of his mouth turned up though Sadie knew it was against his will and better judgment. She still wore her pale blue housecoat over an ivory nightgown and her hair was in a braid coiled about her head, a style she'd adopted from her time in Europe. This, combined with the way she practically glowed, was too much for Bucky to resist and Sadie knew it. Crossing the kitchen, he took her face in one of his hands and kissed her softly, plucking the apple out of her grasp with the other. _

"_Hey!" She half-shouted through a shocked laugh as he took an enormous bite, grinning at her as he did. "I was going to eat that." _

"_People who disobey their doctors don't deserve apples," he said simply, fixing her with a fresh glare as he remembered his ire in the first place. _

"_I'm not disobeying anyone," she said delicately, though she refused to meet his eyes as she grabbed another apple. _

"_I'm pretty sure that 'bedrest' means resting in bed. It's not rocket science," reasoned Bucky._

_Sadie scowled. "What it means is another day of mind-numbing boredom and discomfort. I don't see why I can't go to work."_

_At her words Bucky clapped a hand over his face and gestured with his free hand, apple and all, toward her body. "Because you're eight and a half months pregnant, that's why!"_

_Sadie looked down at her torso, her left hand resting on her now enormous stomach. Her sapphire engagement ring and matching wedding band shone on her ring finger, just barely fitting in light of her recent swelling. "That's ridiculous," she said dismissively. "Women in some countries give birth in fields while they work and just keep on going. Wouldn't it be better if I went into labor while at the hospital? It'd save us a lot of headache." _

_Bucky stared at the ceiling, muttering the words of what Sadie was sure was a prayer to any god who was listening for more patience. Under any other circumstances, Bucky loved Sadie's stubborn streak and unwillingness to bend to any expectations but her own. This one particular circumstance, however, was a golden exception to the rule. "Yeah, well those women don't have one of the best doctors in the city ordering them on bedrest," he grumbled._

_The frustration leaching out of his voice bordered on desperation. Sadie, slightly mollified by his defeated tone, softened and padded across the kitchen back to him. As best as she could, she brought her arms around Bucky, resting against his shoulder. "I'm sorry, I know I'm being difficult. I just hate feeling useless." _

_Absently he kissed the top of her head, stroking her back. "You're growing a person, Sade. That's not useless." _

"_You're right," she muttered. "But you know me, I'm not happy unless I'm running around trying to contain ten different kinds of chaos."_

"_If it makes you feel any better, I think the chaos factor around here is about to go up. My mom keeps telling me that babies are nothing but chaos." _

"_Yes, and she's a saint for coming here to keep the baby when I go back to work, even though I just know she hates the idea that I'd ever go back to work. Or maybe she just feels sorry for me that I'm carrying something that's half you," she teased, wriggling out of his hold. _

_Bucky drew his chest up in mock offense but then shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know what she's talking about; I was a perfect child."_

"_HAH!" Laughed Sadie. "I've heard the stories from Steve. I know better." _

_Bucky put both of his hands on her shoulders and turned her around, marching her out of the kitchen and down the hall. "It can't be any worse than this baby having your hard head." _

"_You love my stubbornness," argued Sadie. _

"_I love everything about you," reasoned Bucky. "But right now I could do with a little less arguing and a lot more listening to your doctor. For my sanity, please."_

"_Well, when you put it that way," she conceded under her breath and let him lead her back to their bedroom. "So who did you line up to be my company today? Is your mom going to try again to teach me how to knit? Is Dum Dum going to spend his whole day trying to convince me that he actually can cook? Or will I be listening to the world series with your dad today?" _

_Bucky held on tight to Sadie's hands as he helped her sit down. In the past month she'd lost all sense of her own gravity, a fact which exasperated and amused her in equal turns, especially when simple tasks like getting in and out of bed became increasingly difficult. She paused as she sat down, hand on her swollen stomach. As he helped her lie down, Bucky caught her lips in a deep kiss, bringing himself halfway over her while he did his best to make a mess of her hair. "You know, you could just stay home all day and we can keep doing that."_

"_I wish," he said between soft kisses. Sadie flopped her head back against her pillow, letting out a pitiable moan of frustration. But instead of letting Bucky go when he tried to stand up, she tugged him back down to her. It took several more minutes before Bucky managed to pull himself away and finish dressing for the day. While he tied his tie he told her about the long day of chasing after fresh leads on a pair of covert HYDRA agents alongside Steve, all part of the post-war dream. He'd just finished the loose knot on his tie when someone knocked on their door. _

_Bucky disappeared out of the bedroom and Sadie smiled to herself, imagining his shoulders sagging in relief to meet his replacement for the day. "Thank God you're here," she heard him say. _

"_I'm quite happy to help." Peggy Carter's crisp English accent accompanied the click of her high heels in the entryway. "You're looking a bit overwhelmed."_

"_She's supposed to be on bedrest until the baby comes. Forget surviving the war, I'm never going to survive this pregnancy."_

"_I heard that!" Sadie called, smirking when she heard all movement in the entryway halt. _

"_I'll just put these groceries in the kitchen," said Peggy hesitantly but Sadie didn't imagine the laugh in her voice._

_Bucky appeared in the doorway a second later, looking rather sheepish. Pursing her lips together, Sadie folded her hands over her stomach. "It's just a guess, but I don't think you're going to be slain by my uterus."_

_He drew deeper into their bedroom and sat down on the edge of the bed. "No, but I wouldn't survive it if anything happened to you or to our baby." _

_Bucky placed his palm on her stomach, spreading his fingers wide. The gold ring he wore, her father's wedding ring, caught her breath and she covered his hand. "Alright," she agreed. "No more disobeying the doctor's orders. I'll be your perfect angel." _

_Shrugging his shoulder, he shot her a playful look and kissed her forehead. "Maybe not too perfect." _

"_That, I can do. It's just two weeks," she reasoned more for his benefit than hers. "How hard can two weeks be?"_

_They shared a smile. "Nearly impossible, knowing you. But I'll be back tonight and I'll draw us a warm bath and rub your shoulders ." _

_Sadie wrapped her fingers around his tie and tugged him closer. "I love you." _

"_Love you too, Sade." _

Sadie felt the ghost of Bucky's lips over hers as though he was trying to kiss her but couldn't quite reach. She moved forward, trying to close the distance and as she did she collapsed over herself. Shrieking, she fell out of bed and grappled her way to her knees. A plain hospital gown covered her thin frame. Patting her body down, she choked out a horrified sob when her hands slid over her flat stomach. No ring adorned her left hand and Bucky was nowhere to be seen.

"Bucky?" The furniture in her bedroom faded away and when she whipped her head in one direction and then the other, she saw nothing but white expanse. "Bucky?" She called into the void. Where was Bucky? Where was her husband?

A blast of cold wind rushed past her, cutting through her thin skin right down to her bones. Shivers wracked her body, causing her to fold in on herself and sink down to lie on the hard floor. Icy air rattled in her lungs. Her breaths came in wheezes as though she'd been submerged in ice water and drawn out at the last possible second. Darkness passed over her eyes, coming in flashes until the light became blinding to her.

"Hey, hey, wake up!" A voice called out to her but it wasn't Bucky's. The accent was thick and the tone was all wrong. Sadie squeezed her eyes shut. This was wrong - it was all wrong. She needed Bucky. She needed her family, and her child. The light hurt now, pulsating against her eyes. Someone touched her, their fingers pressing against her naked skin like pins and needles. Sadie recoiled.

"Quick, get my spare clothes out of my pack; she's freezing."

Zippers and rustling, more pins and needles stabbing her skin. Her joints felt stiff, the rest of her shut down. Any awareness she had left slipped away with the shreds of her dream.

"Hey, hey, can you hear me? Come on, wake up." There was gentle tapping on her cold face. "Someone run to the trailhead and call for help!"

A moan escaped Sadie's lips as she struggled to open her eyes. "Holy shit, she's waking up!"

Sadie's muscles screamed as she tried to move. Her chest shuddered and her heart threatened to stop. Agony mingled into her blood, drops of misery forcing the sluggish liquid to move. Behind closed eyelids her eyes pulsed but she didn't want to open them. If she opened her eyes the dream would dissipate and she wanted to hold onto it, to sink back into oblivion. A pitiable moan rose in her raw throat. If she concentrated hard enough on the darkness, could she fade back into the perfection of her dream?

She hoped so even as she felt hands grasp her limp, naked form and begin wrapping it up. To ignore the pain of movement, Sadie thought about waking in the warmth of Bucky's arms and of lazy Sunday mornings spent trading sections of the newspaper or laughing as he convinced her they shouldn't bother to get dressed. If this was a delusion, she wanted to stay in it forever where she was safe and with her love. Sadie never wanted to feel the burn of loneliness again. Deeper and deeper she sank into her welcome delusion until she felt and sensed no more.

X X X

"Wow, ten voicemails in one day; now that has got to be a record."

"Maybe you should-I don't know-call him back?"

"Well, I would but you know I've got a lot going on here, things to read and-"

"You've got nothing going on. Call the Secretary back."

Tony Stark glanced over his shoulder at James Rhodes, quirking an eyebrow. Rhodey fixed him with a disapproving glare eerily reminiscent of all of his childhood nannies. Jokes of all kinds bubbled up to the forefront of Tony's mind, particularly questions about his friend's mothering tendencies but he bit them back in exchange for the genuine question that sprang to the tip of his tongue.

"Why do you care whether or not I call Ross back?"

Rhodey crossed his arms over his chest. He stood with his hip leaning against one of the support rails he used for physical therapy. "Because when you ignore him he tends to get mad and then tends to call me, or worse, he just shows up like he owns the damn place."

"Yeah, that must be a real inconvenience for you," Tony muttered even while he continued to tinker on the screen in his hands. Laid out before him was a schematic of the framework he'd created to help Rhodey walk. "Now, this is just the second prototype," he explained, messing with the meter for sensitivity, "but it should respond better to your natural movement than the first try."

Rhodey raised a suspicious eyebrow to counter the smirk lifting one corner of Tony's mouth. The first framework was, to put it mildly, a rush job of epic proportions fueled by way too many sleepless nights and no small amount of guilt. Pulled from old suit blueprints, the robotic frame presented a series of unique challenges. It had to be strong enough to bear Rhodey's weight, support his back and keep his legs straight all whilst remaining open enough to give his legs room to breathe. Considering every piece of the Iron Man suits played some integral role in protection, stabilization, movement and thrust, paring down the components to a basic brace-like frame ended up being a bigger challenge than he first imagined. This was especially true when he considered the user interface had to be sensitive to the slightest movements of Rhodey's upper body to stimulate the walking mechanics. Adding in a power source that didn't require constant charging or bulky batteries on top of all of that proved to be one of the most daunting problems. The first prototype managed to work well enough to get Rhodey upright and moving a few steps until the joints locked up and sent him sideways, leaving him grappling for one of the parallel bars for support before he spilled face-first onto the floor. The exasperated look on Rhodey's face coupled with a flash of pain that was enough to send Tony back to the drawing board, taking the first framework apart all the way down to the wiring and starting over with a fresh blueprint, determined to perfect the braces if it was the last thing he did.

The second set included a better back support, molded perfectly to the curvature of Rhodey's spine with sensors that ran all the way around his waist and down the frame to pick up and transmit the signals to walk. If Tony's math, blueprints, and measurements all came together the correct way then any falls would boil down to the learning curve and user error rather than a flaw in the design. Well, that was the hope at least. Tony knew all too well that even the most perfectly designed structures could still crumble.

Satisfied that the calibrations were right on the money, Tony turned back to discover Rhodey adjusting the fit of the harness. He stood between the parallel bars that took up the middle of the newest room to be remodeled at the Avengers compound. A multitude of other equipment took up the rest of the space, medicine balls on racks, free weights, an exercise bike, and a large padded table next to a set of hooks in the wall holding large physical therapy rubber bands. Although Tony wasn't certain what each piece of equipment was used for, he'd gamely paid for everything on the physical therapist's list, trusting that all of it was going to help rehabilitate his best friend. If there was nothing medical science could do to bring Rhodey's legs back, Tony would be damned if he wasn't going to find every other means of helping him available.

"Alright," he said, clapping his hands together. "Don't just stand there, get moving!"

Rhodey shot him a glare of long-suffering but did as Tony instructed. Grasping both of the parallel bars, he shifted his torso and shoulders, reaching out as though he were about to take a step. The frame slid into action, raising Rhodey's right knee up and drawing his leg forward, stepping down just as his left leg followed.

"It's a little jerky," Rhodey stated the obvious as his next step landed too hard.

"Yeah, I can fix that."

Before Tony could even start to mess with the program, Rhodey's right leg came down and slipped. Only his grip on the bars kept him upright, swaying somewhat unnaturally for balance on legs that he couldn't feel and couldn't support him any longer. Tony darted back to help his friend but Rhodey held up a hand warding him away, signalling that he was okay. At the same time, the phone in the room rang again.

"Tony?" Rhodey asked through gritted teeth, putting all of his strength into his upper body while he wrestled with the frame to get his legs properly back beneath him.

"Yeah?"

"Answer the goddamn phone."

Tony supposed that only the sight of Rhodey's irritated face and equally irritated tone were enough to match the annoyance that Ross quite simply wouldn't take the hint. In the end Rhodey was right anyway; the Secretary would continue to badger him until he answered the phone before resorting to more creative measures to get in touch with him. That usually meant an in-person meeting and those were inconveniences that Tony would rather avoid. Thaddeus Ross had an unusual but uncanny knack for giving him a migraine every time they met.

Rolling his eyes and blowing out an exaggerated sigh, he relented. "Fine. But if he wants someone to come down to DC, you're going."

Rhodey waved him off from where he rested against the bars.

Tony snatched the phone from the cradle and held it up to his ear. "It's not for nothing but you're starting to look a little desperate. I hope this isn't how you treat your dates."

"I wouldn't have to call repeatedly if you'd just pick up the phone the first time."

The problem with Secretary Ross was that he liked to think of himself as taking precedence over any other obligation or matter in Tony's life. Self-important men like Ross tended to rub Tony the wrong way already but a disturbing trend had arisen ever since Tony inked his name on the dotted line for the Accords. Regardless of the fact that Tony took Nick Fury's idea for the Avengers and turned it into the real deal and designed and financed the entire operation, Ross now seemed to possess an air of ownership over the remains of the team and that included expecting Tony to be at his beck and call.

"So sorry, I had important things to do plus, you know, the whole light blinking thing and all that-" Tony waved his hand and pointedly ignored Rhodey's rolling eyes.

"Stark," Ross's annoyance was palpable, so present that Tony could read between the lines and he stood up a fraction straighter. He was used to a litany of phone calls about amendments and addendums to the Accords but now he could detect a bite of impatience and even, dare he say it, desperation? "I need you on a plane."

"To?"

"Bucharest. Something's come up and I need your opinion."

Tony's eyebrows flew up. One other thing he knew about self-important men like Ross was that they never asked for help. Ever.

"What exactly has come up?"

"An abandoned HYDRA base was found in Bucegi National Park and there was something in it - more like someone."

Tony's stomach clenched. The word HYDRA brought up a litany of bad memories and faces he didn't care to think about these days. When the initial recoil eased, his brow furrowed. "You might want to check your records again; we wiped out all of HYDRA."

"You wiped out all of _active_ HYDRA. There's no accounting for how many abandoned operations it left behind over the years and this was one of them, only they didn't clean house before they left."

Which begged the most important question of all, the answer to which Tony wasn't certain he wanted. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he could already feel the beginnings of a magnificent headache. "Who'd they forget to toss in a box with packing peanuts on moving day?"

"Sadie Reid."

His hand fell limp to his side and he almost let go of the receiver in his surprise. That was a name he knew, one he recalled from stories his dad told about the war and the years after. Already he was navigating the halls of his childhood home, right into his dad's study and to the picture that sat on one of the bookshelves there. A young woman immortalized in black and white, dressed in a military uniform and standing next to his father along with other hospital staff. Tony knew about Sadie Reid. He knew she'd served in the SSR with his father, that she'd gone on to found one of the largest humanitarian relief organizations in the world, and that she famously disappeared in nineteen forty nine on the way from Hamburg, Germany to Ypres, Belgium.

Her name echoed in his head, dredging up disbelief along with a grim reminder of his recent history with two of the men she was most notoriously associated with.

"You're shitting me."

X X X

If not for the name 'Sadie Reid' now permanently lodged in his brain, Tony might not have gotten on a jet bound for Bucharest. After he got off the phone with Ross and got Rhodey situated, Tony put in a call to have someone go through his father's archived belongings, to have another person pull a copy of Sadie's SSR file along with any surviving hard copy information from her days starting up IHAP, and had FRIDAY start an exhaustive search of every database, library, museum, and academic institution for anything about Sadie Reid. Though she wasn't nearly as famous as her Howling Commandos counterparts, Sadie Reid's name still carried a certain level of recognition. Her name and photograph cropped up in history books that discussed women's contributions to the war effort, she was recognized as one of the big contributors to the feminist movement, and the stamp she'd made on philanthropic efforts to improve human rights wasn't up for debate. Post-grads the world over lined up for the opportunity to do a two-year tour with IHAP and that was nothing to say of the thousands of nurses, doctors, dentists, psychologists, and teachers who selflessly devoted their time to missions over the decades, weathering social unrest, disease, famine, and war to bring care to some of the most impoverished parts of the world. Sadie's picture hung in every IHAP branch office and her once-tiny startup organization now sat on level playing ground with other philanthropic juggernauts including Tony's own Stark Foundation.

Then there was, of course, the three or so months where her name graced national headlines, sparking a mystery that scholars spent whole dissertations trying to solve. On an otherwise unremarkable day in June nineteen forty nine, Sadie Reid disappeared enroute from Hamburg to Ypres, never to be seen again. While Tony read through the files waiting for him on the jet, he had images of the newspaper headlines hovering in front of him bearing sensationalized language, exclamation points and enough half-cracked speculation to make anyone roll their eyes. And although the news media wasted inches of print on bad theories, the newly-formed SHIELD was much better equipped to conduct the search for Sadie, a woman who had been friend to the founding members and many of its first crop of outstanding agents. Tony read through field reports completed by Peggy Carter, Dum Dum Dugan, James Falsworth, even his own father on their dogged though ultimately fruitless attempts at finding their missing friend. When months passed and leads went cold the rest of the world moved on and took them with it, which was why Tony was surprised to find, buried in his father's archive, a file regarding a search for Sadie that Dum Dum conducted for most of his life with the occasional assistance from his father.

Attached to the front page of the file with a paperclip was a photograph of the woman herself, glancing up at the camera from beneath the brim of her peaked cap. Tony took the picture from the file and held it up for inspection. Although every known picture of Sadie was in black and white, he knew from her file that she was a brunette with grey eyes.

"Friday," he muttered, tilting his head to the side, "Colorize this picture, will you?"

He tapped the top corner of his glasses to scan the photograph. With a swipe of his hand he cleared away the newspapers hovering in front of him and brought the picture to the forefront of his attention.

"Here you go, boss," Friday replied and within seconds the picture underwent a series of filters and-

"Voila," he said, now looking at Sadie Reid in living color. Soft dark brunette curls settled over the shoulders of her military jacket and from beneath her dark, manicured brows, piercing grey eyes held the camera's attention in a steely vice grip. Her perfect makeup highlighted her slightly hollowed cheeks, diminished the stubbornness of her chin and the cherry red pout she sported spelled out a serious, determined nature, something that he recalled his father praising Sadie for. She was another figure on a marble pedestal that Tony could never live up to, another paragon of every quality that he lacked, a shining example of the golden era where everyone seemed larger than life. The longer Tony stared at Sadie's colorized picture the more he could believe she was friends with Steve, though this serious portrait was a far cry from the glowing smile her visage held in the picture Steve kept in his room at the compound.

Before Tony could let the bitter taste of anger and regret color his perception of this perfect stranger, he brushed away any thought of Steve Rogers - or worse, of her one-time fiance before he'd gone off and murdered the very man who didn't lightly abandon the effort to find her. Drawing himself up higher in his seat, he flicked Sadie's digital picture away.

"Tell me what happened again?"

Friday's voice filled the cabin. "Three British backpackers were hiking one of the valleys in Bucegi National Park when they discovered the entrance to a bunker believed to be an abandoned HYDRA facility. There they discovered a number of what appear to be failed, catalogued experiments, including a cryostasis tube. When one of the backpackers unsealed the tube it automatically started the thawing process. According to their statements to the police, they opened the lid and discovered Ms. Reid inside."

Tony's brow furrowed, looking at the pictures attached to the police report that Friday pulled up for his review. "How was the bunker getting enough power to keep the chamber running?"

"Investigators have called in members of the US Army Engineering Corps stationed nearby to confirm but it appears that the original builders buried power lines that connected to the park's electrical grid."

"Clever," he muttered with a note of disdain. "What did the backpackers do with her when they found her?"

"They dressed her in their spare clothing and wrapped her in a sleeping bag. Two backpackers stayed with her while the other went for help. Park rangers called in an emergency helicopter to airlift her to Floreasca Hospital in Bucharest."

A figure emerged from the front of the jet. Happy Hogan smoothed his tie over his chest and came around to sit in the empty seat across from Tony's. "Pilot is starting the descent. Learn anything new?"

"Nothing important," Tony replied, lips toying at a frown.

"And they're sure that this is Sadie Reid? Could be someone else," Happy remarked, reaching for the open SSR file resting on the small table where it sat with other paperwork about her.

"Police report says her physical description matches and she was found wearing a necklace commonly associated with her, along with Barnes' dog tags from the Army," Tony summarized, forcing his way through the final, unfortunate detail. "When Reid joined the Army Nursing Corps she would have been required to give her fingerprints. Ross has someone trying to see if her fingerprint card is still being kept on file somewhere to verify her identity."

"But you think it's her," Happy persisted, still looking dubious. "It wouldn't be hard to fake a necklace and dog tags."

"No," Tony agreed, looking out of the window to see Bucharest grow as the jet drew lower and closer to the private airfield. "But I'm finding it hard to believe that someone would go through the trouble of making themselves look like Reid and crawling into a cryostasis chamber on the off chance that maybe they'd be found. Plus, judging from the police photographs it doesn't look like anyone's been in that bunker for a long time."

Happy let out a low whistle. "Talk about a hell of a coincidence," he remarked, flipping a page in the SSR file. When Tony didn't reply, Happy took it as a signal to keep talking. "That Barnes was living in Bucharest less than three hours away from where a group of backpackers found his wartime sweetheart."

Tony scowled. The relative distance between Barnes's apartment and the bunker didn't escape Tony. What little Ross' team of investigators had gleaned from rummaging through his belongings and journals led them to believe that Barnes had been bouncing across Europe for almost two years until finally landing in Bucharest where he'd been for at least three months before his discovery. Nobody had been able to answer the question of why a man on the run lingered there for so long except that it was a crowded metropolitan area in a country where he knew the language and could easily blend into the crowd. But as Tony watched the details of the buildings come into sharper detail, he considered Happy's words and his own suspicions.

"I don't think it's a coincidence at all," he replied and left his thoughts at that.

A private car awaited them at the airfield and Tony drove to the hospital, leaving Happy to park and handle a call with Pepper while he followed the directions Ross gave him to a hospital ward that was ostensibly closed off for maintenance and construction. He waved down two armed soldiers that stood outside of a set of double doors. The soldiers moved aside and allowed him into a dimly lit hospital hallway. A slight shiver ran down his spine; Tony wasn't much for hospitals and it turned out he liked them even less when they appeared abandoned save for armed soldiers standing in front of two doors, one open and the other closed. Passing through the open doorway, he came into a room occupied by one other person.

"Took you long enough," Thaddeus Ross grumbled from where he stood at an observation window looking into the other guarded room.

"Yeah, well, it took a while to get what you asked for. That, and I didn't want to come."

Ross's mustache twitched though he said nothing, keeping his arms crossed over his chest while he continued to stare straight ahead. Recognizing that he wasn't going to get more opportunity to badger the man, Tony joined him at the window. "My guy at the Army got back to me with scans of Sadie Reid's Army fingerprint cards. They're a match."

Through the window Tony's gaze came to rest on a hospital bed shrouded in semi-darkness. Wires and monitors surrounded the head of the bed, flashing numbers that he couldn't read too well from his vantage point. Dwarfed in the bed and covered by thick blankets a woman slept, face tilted slightly toward the window where he could see her features clearly. Even without any sort of extraneous confirmation, even given the shocking thinness of her face, there was no mistaking Sadie Reid in person. Withdrawing her personnel picture from his pocket, he held it up and sure enough the features lined up to identical perfection. Tony shook his head. Of all of the unbelievable things he'd seen over the last eight years, he couldn't quite understand why he was struggling to wrap his head around this new development. To escape the enormity of the situation and all of the potential consequences it carried, Tony looked for any detail he could latch onto. He didn't have to look particularly hard.

"Why is she restrained?"

Fleece cuffs wrapped around her wrists, keeping her trapped in the bed. Ross shifted his weight. "She keeps having seizures. The doctors can't figure out why but they think it's possible being pulled so fast out of cryo caused neurological damage."

"That's not why you're restraining her."

"The woman disappears in '49 and turns up in a HYDRA outpost wearing Barnes' dog tags? I'm surprised you even have to ask," Ross mused.

"She enhanced?"

"We don't know yet. The doctors don't have the kind of equipment here to test for that sort of thing."

"She hasn't woken up yet?"

"Comes in and out, most of the time she's screaming or has a seizure before going back under. We've tried to keep her asleep but everytime someone pushes the drug through her IV she has another seizure."

Tony frowned. "And the personal guard in the hallway?"

"I'm not taking any precautions. Who knows what her deal is and thanks to you Barnes and Rogers are unaccounted for."

Against his will, Tony snorted in laughter. "And you think a handful of guys with guns are going to stop two super soldiers from getting to her if they wanted to? Rogers broke Wilson and the others out of the Raft; I think you're gonna have to do better."

"I am. There's a quinjet on standby. You're going to escort Ms. Reid back to the Avengers Compound where we can hold her for observation, testing, and questioning."

A slippery, nasty feeling slithered its way from Tony's stomach into his intestines. An ominous note buried itself in Ross's directive, like he was putting the cart before the horse or doling out punishment before the crime even occurred. Tony was no fool; he understood the ramifications of Sadie's discovery and every second she wasn't locked down somewhere far safer than a Romanian hospital ran the increased risk of Steve somehow finding out she was alive and coming for her.

"What makes you think the compound is any safer than the Raft?"

"It's not," Ross replied in a grim sort of voice. "But it's the one place I can think of where Rogers might not dare to go. And if he does, all the better; I'd love nothing more than to throw his ass in a cell."

"And Barnes?"

"Well, that's why we have trained snipers on the premises," Ross added and this time Tony didn't mistake the satisfaction he heard. He caught Tony's shift, the small amount of surprise that filtered across his face at the man's open acknowledgement that he'd just as soon kill Barnes as lock him up in the event he came for his old flame. "I thought you of all people wouldn't have a problem with that."

Tony recoiled at the insinuation. Him _of all people_. Perhaps Ross missed the weeks that Tony had been stewing in a potent combination of guilt and self-loathing. If given the opportunity again Tony knew he would much rather lock Barnes up in a psych ward or prison cell as opposed to killing him.

"You think they'll try and come for her?"

"That's only if they find out she's alive. I've had my men inform the police that it was a case of mistaken identity and to expunge any mention of her name from their records. She was admitted as a Jane Doe and already I've had that wiped out of the database. Outside of you the only other people who know are my people."

"What about the UN? Isn't this the sort of thing you have to report to the Accords council?

"Not until we know what we're dealing with. I intend to keep this a secret until I can figure out what to do with her."

Tony had to wrestle down the part of him that was ready to argue with Ross. He didn't disagree with keeping the UN out of it until they had a better grasp on the situation, until he could test Sadie's DNA, until she was awake and talking, until they could determine whether she was friend or foe. But somehow he got the impression that Ross meant other things when it came to figuring out what to do with her. Suddenly the prospect of having Sadie at the secure compound where Tony could keep an eye on her sounded appealing, not only for the rest of the world's protection but hers as well.

In the other room, Sadie Reid's face twitched in her sleep. Tony wondered how long it would take for her to recover from her impromptu thawing. He could only hope she would stay out cold long enough transfer her back to New York.

X X X

A strange symphony played Sadie into consciousness. Metallic clicks kept a steady, if somewhat slow, beat to accompany the soft tones repeating at even intervals. She heard the whoosh of her pulse in her ears that matched up with the strong thump of her heart, playing the kick drum in her chest. Even the reedy crescendo of her breath mingled in with the other sounds that drew her slowly out of her sleep, filling her ears and reaching into her mind as if to play the reverse of a lullaby. The wakeup call eventually gave way to the dim light pulsing behind her closed eyes, cutting through the darkness of her sleep.

Sadie lay in a comfortable bed, far more comfortable than the bed she'd had in the barracks in Germany. Although she wanted to say she was in Ypres, that didn't feel quite right. For one thing she didn't remember ever reaching Ypres and for another, there was no way the bed awaiting her there would be so welcoming. Flashes of dreams continued to accost her, jumping out from shadowy corners in her mind even as she wrestled with the strangest feeling of deja vu-or not quite deja vu but the feeling that she'd been conscious more than once during her sleep. A jittery feeling continued to course through her, like aftershocks from an earthquake that she couldn't remember happening.

Though a reasonable explanation eluded her, Sadie felt as though she was staring at a wall in her mind, an iron curtain drawn over a part of her memories that she couldn't pull back. Was there something she'd missed? Refusing to open her eyes, she tried to go back to the last thing she remembered. There was the IHAP mission stationed in Hamburg. She'd been treating patients all day before going back with the rest of the team to some old, unused German army barracks. Sadie vaguely remembered eating dinner with everyone though she couldn't remember what she ate. Then she'd sat out late with Ruthie, admiring the night sky and the warm summer air. And then she'd gone to bed and...had she woken up? Was she still in Hamburg?

But that wasn't right either. Sifting through the jumble of thoughts in her head, Sadie recalled that she'd woken the next morning and gone to an airfield just outside of the city. The driver took a strange route, as though he wasn't quite sure of where he was supposed to go before finally reaching the gated airfield. Sadie's lips parted softly as her eyes began to flutter, lashes brushing against her cheeks. Agent Murphy was waiting for her to go over security details but he was different than she remembered - harder, colder. Tiny details jumped out at her now. A blocked exit. The feel of her necklace in her shaking hand. Taunts about her choices. Agent Murphy's narrowed eyes and the rat-like smirk tugging at his thin lips. Light began to filter into Sadie's eyes as she blinked rapidly. He'd betrayed her, setting up a false meeting to get her isolated so he could take her away at the beckoning of-she inhaled sharply.

"Bucky," she whispered, closing her hand in a bid to feel the dog tags that weren't there. The last thing she remembered was running for the door, holding onto Bucky's dog tags in a desperate bid to get away. Alcohol burned her nose and two words cut through the haze of her terror just as the chloroform took effect.

_Hail HYDRA_.

"Oh my God."

Sadie's eyes flew open and she raised a hand to shield them from the low light that still irritated her. The muscles in her arm screamed from the simple action, stretching and aching as though it had been an age since she last moved her body. A hollow thud resonated between her temples. But all of the strange sensations took a backseat to the bitter taste in her mouth and the cold terror that clenched her stomach.

Agent Murphy was with HYDRA and he'd taken her somewhere but where that was, she didn't know. Were the dog tags really Bucky's? Was it possible, no matter how improbable, that he was still alive? Sadie couldn't even believe she was allowing herself to hope for it but Murphy had been so calm and collected, so assured of himself like he'd actually seen Bucky. Very few people knew that Bucky wore her Saint Christopher's medal with his tags; he didn't have a habit of taking them out the way she often did her necklace. One way or another, Sadie had to find out. She had to figure out where she was, if she was really in HYDRA's clutches and if, somewhere out there, her love was still alive and in need of her.

Groaning, she slid her hands beneath her elbows and pushed herself up, swaying just a little as she did. The light eased on her eyes, allowing her to see the snow white blankets draped over her thin frame. The hospital gown she wore felt strange against her naked skin, light and breathable, not at all like the heavy cotton she remembered from her prior experience in a hospital ward. Bracing herself, she eased her legs over to the edge of the bed and slid forward, placing her bare feet on the cool floor. Without a second for thought or hesitation, she stood up. Her weakened legs gave out from beneath her and she collapsed on the hard floor in a heap, hitting her side with a cry. The back of her hand stung and she turned it over to see a small amount of blood pooling where an IV line had been, torn right out of her skin, the line swaying back and forth a few feet away from her. Sadie wiped the blood off on her hospital gown, staring down at the floor while she tried to catch her breath and her bearings.

Why was she so weak? Only time and lack of substantial use would cause this kind of jarring frailty.

"How long was I asleep?" She asked to herself, voice sounding raw and foreign as it echoed off the walls.

Lifting her chin, she looked up to her hospital bed and frowned. Why did it seem so high off the ground? The construction was unlike anything she'd ever seen before, causing her to blink several times before she brushed it off as something of little consequence. Instead she reached up and grasped the blankets, curling her stiff fingers over the fitted sheet to anchor herself in her struggle to get her feet beneath her long enough to pulled herself up onto the bed. The effort took more energy out of her than she anticipated and she sank back onto the bed, elbows pushing into the mattress as she took yet another minute to collect herself.

As her eyes continued to take in the light and the slowly emerging details of her surroundings, Sadie noticed that everything around her was a varying shade of white or grey, touched with soft blue light that appeared to rise up from the baseboards in the room rather than overhead. Tilting her head to the side, Sadie tried to make heads or tails of her unusual surroundings. Across from the foot of her bed a huge pane of rectangular glass overlooked the room, showing not the other side but her reflection only and that of the room, similar to a mirror. On one side of the mirror sat a chair and on the other a door. Sadie's heart started to leap into her chest when she noticed another door on the wall adjacent to the chair. If she was going to try an escape, which one was she supposed to use?

"Escape?" She echoed to herself. "You can't even walk."

Rolling off her side, she pushed herself back up into a seated position again and drew her fingers through her wild curls of hair. Almost immediately she snatched her hands back out to grasp the strands and give them a sharp tug, running the length of her hair that fell past the inside of her elbow. Dread poured down her throat to fill her stomach, pitching it into a chaotic twist. When she'd last brushed her hair, the morning she was to leave Hamburg, her hair fell only an inch or two past her collarbones. For it to grow several extra inches would take months, maybe even longer than a year.

How could that be? How could Sadie not remember an entire year?

Scrubbing her face with her hands, she tried to clear her mind of the onslaught of questions, desperate to get back to the heart of the matter. She was in a strange place, not of her own will. The last thing she could remember was holding Bucky's dog tags. Bucky might be alive. She might be able to find him if she could just figure out where she was and how long she'd been held captive.

Twisting to one side, she looked for anything that might help her support her weight to walk across the room and try the doors. An IV meant an IV pole and while it wasn't perfect, it would hopefully be enough to keep her upright. Sadie had to squeeze her eyes shut and open them again to make sure she wasn't seeing things. A clear bag of fluid hung from the top loop of an IV pole but bisecting the pole was a-she couldn't think any word except machine. The line from the bag appeared to run through the machine that was flat on the front, with a series of buttons bearing numbers and words she couldn't quite make out. She'd never seen anything like the machine in her life, far more advanced than any sort of medical technology she'd encountered in any hospital. The metallic clicks she'd heard were coming from the machine and, out of sheer curiosity, she scooted along the bed to reach out and grab the pole, dragging it closer to her. Part of the front was taken up by a flat panel, something like a monitor transmitting information, though she couldn't make sense of the numbers. Glancing up she rose just a fraction higher to reach the bag, twisting it so she could read the words on one side, fearing what kind of medicine might be already coursing through her veins.

"Sodium chloride?"

Sadie's brows furrowed. Saline solution was used to treat dehydration among other innocuous things. She had a hard time believing that HYDRA would care so much about her wellbeing that its doctors would try to prevent a mild case of dehydration.

The strange devices in her room and the saline IV only further convinced Sadie that she needed answers and she needed them fast. Grasping the IV pole, she held onto it tightly as she once again tried her legs. They gave when she put her weight on them but between the bed and the IV pole she managed to stay upright, waiting until she had better control of herself before daring to take one shaky step and then another. Moving at a glacial pace, she reached the end of the bed and pulled the IV in front of her, holding on tight with both hands as she plodded toward the door next to the mirror. Though she supposed it was just her motivation helping supply her body with adrenaline, Sadie swore that she felt stronger with each passing step until at last she reached the door. Much to her disappointment and lack of surprise, when she tried the handle it was locked.

"Damn."

Sadie looked to the other door and took a deep breath to go try it but then caught her reflection in the glass.

Every last thought of escape dropped out of her head like a brick crashing through a window. Releasing one trembling hand from the IV pole, she touched her cheekbone just to ensure that the woman staring back at her really was her own reflection. All of her hair hung heavily around her in a limp mess of tangled waves, nothing like the shining coif she fastidiously maintained even in the field. But Sadie's hair was the least of her shock and concern. Stormy grey eyes stared out at her from hollowed eye sockets, set above deep purple crescent-shaped bruises. Her dark eyebrows were overgrown and out of control as they curved just beneath sunken temples that had nothing on her protruding cheekbones. Gone was the healthy coloring of her ivory skin and fullness she'd regained after the war. Instead of her softly defined features Sadie stared at a shell of herself, a half-starved, gaunt creature who seemed to know more about her missing time than she did. At the opening of her hospital gown she could see her collar bones sticking out above the ghostly pale skin that stretched taught over her breastbone. And there, where she expected to see the chain of her necklace, she saw nothing. Her neck was just as naked and terrifying as the rest of her. The sight was nothing short of a total shock to her delicate system.

Sadie's eyes rolled up into the back of her head and she fainted.

X X X

"Nurse Ratched!"

The lone nurse standing inside the observation room glanced up from her tablet, raising her thin eyebrows. Tony's acerbic grin only grew upon the sight of her disapproving frown.

"Mr. Stark, you know how I feel about nicknames," Nurse Gonzales warned.

"Really? I thought it was just part of our playful banter. But if you insist," Tony lamented, moving to peer over Nurse Gonzales's shoulder at the information displayed on the tablet. Gonzales was among the longest-serving supporting staff for the Avengers, working in the medical division at Stark Tower before moving with the team to the compound. A thoroughly competent nurse, she often took the lead on the care of priority patients and kept her staff running with the precision of a swiss watch, a trait which Tony valued far above her total lack of a sense of humor. Though she was one of the few staffers who wasn't afraid to put him in his place, which he found amusing and admirable in equal turns.

"So, how is our patient this morning? Still doing her best Sleeping Beauty impression?"

"See for yourself."

Tony's head snapped up at the dismissive instruction, given even as Nurse Gonzales turned her back on the one-way mirror to retrieve her morning coffee. In the two days since he safely oversaw Sadie's transfer from Bucharest to the compound, Tony had come to check on her progress no less than eight times, itching for some word on her status. A team of doctors were responsible for overseeing her progress along with running an exhaustive battery of tests on blood samples taken when she arrived and every twelve hours since. So far he'd only seen the results of the basic blood panels but the doctors were still studying tissue samples and doing the work to unravel as many secrets about Sadie Reid as they could. But for all of their testing, they hadn't been able to give a clear answer as to when she would wake up and what her condition might be.

It turned out that Tony didn't have to wait for the doctors.

Sadie sat on her hospital bed staring at her hands from between the curtains of her ridiculously long hair. For the most part she sat perfectly still, save for the rise and fall of her shoulders in breath and the twitching of her fingertips. Under the ambient blue glow from the lights she looked like a ghost, all pale skin and bones to the point where Tony half-expected her to phase through the walls like something out of a horror movie. But she just sat, hunched over herself looking small and pitiable, nothing like the woman he'd seen in pictures. Just staring at her, Tony had a hard time imagining her running through the thick of the war. Already Ross was discussing the possibilities of what she'd done under HYDRA's control and had an entire army of his paper-pushing minions sifting through old SHIELD files and historical events since the war, searching for any whiff of her. But, as she turned one painfully thin hand over to examine her fingers, Tony couldn't even begin to imagine what HYDRA would have used her for. Sadie looked like one stiff breeze would knock her over and keep her down.

"Has she said anything?"

Nurse Gonzales glanced up from her coffee. "Not yet."

"Nothing? Not even when you've gone in there to check on her or bring food?"

Tony noticed that Nurse Gonzales wouldn't quite meet his eye. "We're under strict orders from the Secretary not to engage with her while she's awake."

Tony knew that he had no right to be surprised and yet he still was. Snorting in humorless laughter, he shook his head. "So you're supposed to wait until she's asleep and then sneak her soup in?"

He'd meant it as a joke but Nurse Gonzales sighed. "I don't care for it much either, Mr. Stark. When she first woke up she tried the door to this room even though she could barely walk. Took one look at herself in the glass and fainted. The secretary wanted to restrain her but she's gotten sick."

"Well, it's nice he doesn't want her choking on her own vomit," he snapped to nobody in particular. "So she doesn't know where she is or what year it is or that she's not in HYDRA's custody anymore?"

"No, sir. She's been told nothing and has only said a handful of words to herself. I'm not even sure she's aware that we can see her through the one-way glass."

"I doubt she knows she's being recorded either," Tony groused, more than fed up with Secretary Ross's punitive measures.

Nurse Gonzales started in surprise when Tony tapped two fingers on the glass but her surprise had nothing on Sadie's. Her head snapped up in an instant, honing in on the source of the sound immediately. Even Tony had to admit a chill slipped down his spine. Sadie's stormy eyes shone out from her gaunt face, twin beacons that held onto him with astonishing force. Tony had to remind himself that she couldn't actually see through the mirror right to him. Her hands fell to her sides and she sat up a little higher, swallowing hard.

"Hello?" She called out, her voice raspy. "I know someone's there. Please, I think," she paused to drag a hand over her face, brows and nose scrunched up while she struggled to piece her thoughts together, "I think I was taken prisoner by a HYDRA agent."

"Well, that's new," Nurse Gonzales declared. "She hasn't breathed a word of HYDRA since she woke up."

A sneaking suspicion that Sadie Reid was an unwitting victim started to creep up on Tony. Pieces of a puzzle were emerging onto the table - her emaciated visage, Barnes' dog tags Ross confiscated upon her arrival to the compound, her shell-shocked confusion at her surroundings, and even the note of apprehension clinging to her raw voice. Though Tony wasn't sure he liked the picture forming, he knew for certain that, for the moment, Nurse Gonzales was more of a threat to him than Sadie Reid.

"Yeah," he said shortly, mind made up. "I've had enough of this."

Over Nurse Gonzales's protests he strode over to the door adjoining the observation room to Sadie's. Flicking the lock, he grasped the handle and threw the door open. The sudden noise of the door banging open accompanied by Tony's surprise appearance startled Sadie so badly that she lost her balance, falling backward onto the bed, clutching her heart.

"Oh, sorry about that," he mused, looking once over his shoulder at the irate Nurse Gonzales and giving her a wink before shutting the door behind him. Turning back to Sadie, he raised an eyebrow. "Did I scare you?"

**A/N: I know it's a bit of a slow-ish start but just be patient! I'll get to the good stuff soon enough. Next chapter features some important first meetings!**

**Love it, hate it, already miss the 40's (I know I do *sobs*)? I'd love to hear any and all thoughts. Much love - Kappa.**


	2. Closing In

**A/N: So, it took me longer to finish this chapter than I initially anticipated. Blame it on the hard push to finish Songbirds accompanied with some real-life roller coaster events. That being said, if you're new to my works I have to shamefully admit I'm not always the most consistent updater so, apologies in advance! I did agonize over this chapter – Tony Stark is not an easy character to write and there is just SO much information to crunch through in these early chapters! Hopefully you like it!**

**HOLY SHIT. You all are amazing! I cannot get over the reviews, faves and follows. Seriously thank you sososo much for all the love! Extra thanks to the wonderful Not Enough Answers and my beta-extraordinaire Stencil Your Heart for all of their help getting this chapter finished!**

**Disclaimer – I don't own **_**Marvel**_**. I don't want to talk about it.**

**Chapter Two - Closing In**

For just a fraction of a second the world stood utterly still. Sadie propped herself up by her elbow where she fell backward on her bed from the stranger's explosive entry into her room. Though she knew it to be a medical impossibility, she swore her heart was going to break through her ribs such was her shock. Her frail body quivered, a livewire in response to the surprise that sent one hand to clutch her chest in a pitiable attempt to calm her pounding heart. The man made a funny face from the opposite side of the room until he dared to draw a couple of steps closer to her and Sadie couldn't tell if his half-frown and raised eyebrows were a sign of curiosity or concern.

At first she swore she thought she was looking at Howard Stark. The man certainly possessed the same sort of swing to his step and had similar facial features but after she blinked, Sadie realized that the man wasn't Howard.

The man's dark eyes darted over every visible detail of Sadie's appearance, reminding her that she wore nothing except a navy blue hospital gown that swallowed her figure. She moved to draw the covers over her body to shield herself from his appraising gaze but couldn't as she was still half-sprawled out over them, her pale, bony legs stretched out for his inspection. Sadie's cheeks flushed beet red and she scrambled to tug the hem of the gown over her exposed skin which only drew his attention to her wasted figure. Glancing away from him toward her lap, she wished she could just sink into her mattress and die. What was she doing, going around nearly having a panic attack from the over-dramatic entrance of a man with the strangest facial hair she'd ever seen? At one point in her life Sadie prided herself on her reserved, unflappable constitution. But then she remembered she didn't even know where she was or what happened for her to reach this particular junction in her life.

Still, the man was something of a curiosity himself. He'd shaved his goatee into a series of sharp angles with such precision Sadie was willing to bet each side was perfectly symmetrical with the other. In conjunction with his unusual facial hair he wore clothes that, much like her hospital gown, were made of material she'd never seen before. His black jacket hung open to reveal a dark grey shirt that cut a fine line on his figure, a far cry from the drab colors she remembered or the blousier fit of shirts men so often wore at home. Where was his tie? Did men not feel the need to dress appropriately for… well, wherever they were? Everything about this man took Sadie further and further from any place of comfort. He hesitated, holding up both hands in a mild peace offering.

"You're not gonna have a heart attack are you? Because that would be seriously unfortunate timing."

Whatever Sadie expected to hear, that was not it.

"What?" She managed to spit out, scrunching her nose up in confusion. "No, I'm not going to have a heart attack," she snapped, though at the moment she wasn't entirely certain that was true considering the organ in question was still pounding away wildly at her breastbone. "Who are you?"

"Oh right, introductions. Your generation is so big on manners, isn't it?" The man waved a dismissive hand before reaching for the only other piece of furniture in the room, a chair that he dragged over to the side of her bed. Sadie couldn't even get her mind around the phrase _'your generation'_ before he plopped into the chair and kicked his legs, propping his feet on the bed to show off a pair of shoes that, much like the rest of him, defied everything she knew. The tips of her fingers twitched in a fit of curiosity, wanting to touch the unusual fabric making up the body and what she could only assume was the rubber that comprised the soles. But the man, seemingly determined to keep Sadie's head spinning, continued on with zero regard for her confusion and dropped a bomb on her that was powerful enough to divert her attention from his shoes and the rest of his appearance for that matter. "Tony Stark."

"Stark?" She echoed, latching onto the first scrap of familiarity she'd been presented with since waking up. Sadie only knew of one Stark and she wasn't dim enough to believe in sheer coincidence. "Are you a relative of Howard's?" Her eyes narrowed. "One of Stark's relatives is with HYDRA? I don't believe it."

"I'm not with HYDRA. They're gone, wiped off the map by the-" he paused, face twisting into a mildly tortured expression. Thinking better of what he was about to say next, he swallowed and changed course. "And I'm not just related to Howard; I'm his son for better and for worse, mostly for worse."

The silence that followed this revelation was so profound that Sadie swore she'd gone temporarily deaf. Eventually she heard the blood whooshing in her ears that still wasn't loud enough to drown out the echo in her brain. Howard Stark. Tony Stark. Howard's son. Howard Stark had a son. The man, Howard's son, crossed his arms over his chest, content to watch the entire gamut of emotions that this revelation took her through, not missing a tick on Sadie's face when she didn't even try to mask her expressions. Tony looked to be in his mid-forties, something that only further added to the growing feeling of absurdity. Before Sadie could even register what she was doing, her lips pulled into a stiff smile that served as the gateway for the humorless laughter bubbling up from her lungs. The whole thing was just too stupid and ridiculous for words. Reaching to the inside of her elbow, Sadie pinched her skin hard enough to draw blood.

"Whatcha doin' there?" Tony asked her.

"Trying to wake myself up," she replied through her laughter. "Because clearly I'm dreaming. Howard Stark doesn't have a son! I saw him less than a month ago and he certainly didn't have a child then so it's impossible!"

"You sure about that?" Tony asked her, looking far too calm and smug for his own good.

In that moment Sadie swore she saw a flash of Howard's overwhelming confidence shine through Tony. The longer she looked at him the more little details jumped out at her and reminded her of her friend. Tony's dark hair, his lackadaisical posture, and even the way he raised one corner of his mouth in a smirk that Howard often displayed. There was an eerily familiar swagger about Tony Stark, as though he was often the smartest person in any room he walked into and fully aware of it. But that was impossible. Now Sadie's mind was taking a turn for the crazy, ascribing traits to a total stranger who was obviously lying to her.

"No," she denied him flatly. "No, that's impossible. Howard is single and moreover even if he did have a child, there's no way that child is you. You have to be in your forties! I might have been asleep for a little while but not that long. Next thing I know you're going to tell me it's nineteen-sixty or some ridiculous nonsense like that."

"Actually it's 2016 but you know, close enough."

The air escaped Sadie's lungs in a cough, expelling as forcefully as if she'd been punched. "Twenty-twenty six-" she wheezed, unable to even finish the thought.

Twenty-sixteen was an abstract concept in her head, an unfathomable number that piled onto the other unbelievable things she was grappling with. She didn't even know what to say in response to the idea that she'd somehow allegedly travelled through time to wind up in another century sitting with the adult son of Howard Stark in a blue-lit room that was so sterile she was convinced someone could do surgery on the floor. Once more her chapped lips drew into a bitter grin and her full-bellied laughter filled the room up to its corners. Tony dropped his feet from the bed, sitting up a little higher as she continued to laugh, wrapping an arm around her aching stomach. Sadie laughed until her chest started to seize up and she couldn't breathe.

"I've gone crazy," she choked out between bouts, throwing her free hand out to support her weight as she slumped forward. "Either that or I'm hallucinating that Howard Stark's son," she laughed even harder, "is telling me that yesterday it was nineteen forty-nine and today it's twenty sixteen."

Tony wiped his face with his hands. "Well, I expected you to take the news badly but this is a new one. You're not crazy, or at least I don't think you are. You've been in cryostasis, a human popsicle locked up in a HYDRA facility for God-only-knows how long. A group of backpackers found you in Romania about a week ago."

Sadie lifted her head, blinking owlishly at Tony as her laughter slowed down. She recognized that he was trying to convey important information to her, an explanation of sorts for how she'd ended up in this position. For all she knew Tony was on the verge of taking out a gun and shooting her, but she just couldn't stop herself. Another laugh burst out of her lungs and she shook her head, wiping the tears from her eyes.

"None of that makes a goddamned lick of sense. Am I in a sanitarium? Good Lord, what happened to me?"

"That's what we're trying to figure out," Tony groused, rubbing the back of his neck. "You disappeared somewhere on the trip from Hamburg to Ypres in June of '49. After that there's just nothing-you were gone."

Slowly, Sadie's laughter shifted. Her last memory came back to her. Agent Murphy's face leered out of the darkness along with his words of warning. She was meant to help shape the new world. And those last two words continued to linger with her, an omen coupled with the darkness that overtook her, leading to a thousand memories that turned out to be nothing more than dreams. Sadie thought of every beautiful visage of what her life could have been, so rich in detail and sense that she swore it was all real. Raising a hand, she covered part of her face as it collapsed. Her sparse tears of mirth grew steadier and the sound of her laughter transitioned to the first sob that popped up from her lungs, a pitiable dry crack that was all she could manage upon recognizing that every sweet moment she dreamed was nothing more than a hope she'd buried deep in her heart, never to live out.

Sadie's body turned inward, her shoulders rounding and elbows folding against her chest as she sobbed into her hands. She wanted to curl up in a ball and hide beneath the covers and it was all she could do to keep breathing. Was this what having a breakdown was like? Perhaps she really was going insane; that would explain her erratic behavior of the last several minutes and the radical, wild swings in her emotion.

"And there we go," Tony muttered to himself, dragging out the words. The chair beneath him scraped along the floor and she flinched when he dropped a hand on her shoulder, giving it a few awkward pats. Even his attempt at comfort was as disaffected as the rest of him, ringing hollow though Sadie didn't understand why. "There, there, just get it all out."

When at last she managed to stop crying she lifted her head from her hands to discover him leaning against the side of her bed, arms draped loosely over his chest and his intense gaze fixed on her. Sadie knew she ought to apologize or at the very least try to explain her roller coaster behavior but that wasn't the first thought to enter her mind. Looking at Tony she recognized another trait in Howard, his penchant for turning serious on a dime and his tendency to tell the truth, no matter how cold and hard it might be. Her mouth opened in soft surprise, looking over his clothes before turning back to the machines that were supposed to be monitoring her, including the one for her IV that still confounded her. Turning her attention back to Tony, she read the somber line of his mouth and the earnesty in his suddenly hard eyes and although the impulse went against every ounce of her military training and every shred of her common sense, she believed him.

"You're serious, aren't you?"

"You're not in Kansas anymore, Toto," he remarked, bringing the ghost of a smile to Sadie's lips. _The Wizard of Oz_ was still around, so that was something. "There are other people who want to talk to you but you need to clean up." Tony reached out and grasped her tiny wrist, lifting her hand up for inspection. "Definitely a couple of square meals. Thoughts on cheeseburgers? I know a place," he waved her off. "What do you know about good food? I'll take care of it, just give me a few."

Just as rapidly as he came into her life, Tony was on his feet, making for the door. Another bout of panic flickered to life in her veins, sending her rocking back up to her knees. "Mr. Stark?"

Tony stopped and whirled around, holding up a finger. "Please don't call me that again, it sounds weird coming from a woman of your advanced age."

Sadie didn't know what to make of his antics and instead of focusing on them she raised a hand to her bare neck, feeling the absence of her usual chain. "I had a necklace."

"Yeah," he said shortly. "I'll look into that. Anything else?"

She wasn't sure how to ask the question and a tiny voice from the reasonable part of her mind shouted that she had no reason to trust this Tony except a gut feeling. But the want to know, the need to validate Murphy's thinly veiled insinuations, was too strong.

"Is-" she paused and took a deep breath, steeling herself for the answer she might receive, good or bad. "Is it true? Is Bucky Barnes really alive?"

At once Sadie knew she'd said something wrong. The temperature in the room plummeted several degrees. Tony's previously perfectly engaging, if somewhat head scratching, nature vanished in an instant as he closed himself off, mouth drawing into a stony line that matched the coldness in his eyes. There was something buried in the stiff lines of his posture and the almost white-knuckled grip he had on the door handle. Sadie couldn't tell if it was anger or disapproval, perhaps even disappointment or a combination, but whatever it was she found herself sliding off her knees to place even more distance between them. He opened his mouth to speak, closed it and then blew out a hard sigh. Opening the door with a jerk, he started to leave and then stopped, glancing once more over his shoulder.

"Yeah."

X X X

A tiny dot of blood welled up on Sadie's skin where she'd just plucked another dark hair from a deep root. She blotted it away with a tissue and continued on, cleaning up the space between her dark eyebrows and bringing some desperately needed definition. After the past few hours she'd endured, there was something therapeutic about tweezing her eyebrows. Find a stray hair and pluck, one hair after another until the natural shape of her brows began to emerge, a neat picture where she exercised full control. Sadie took her time, considering her reflection in the lit mirror that she was still struggling to recognize as her own. She didn't even mind the occasional painful hair that she got at the root. The sharp sting served as a reminder that she wasn't hallucinating or dreaming; no, she was wide awake in a strange world that encroached on her at all sides. But she found something as simple as tweezing her eyebrows enough to ground her for now. If women in twenty-sixteen still shaped their eyebrows then that was at least something, no matter how small, that Sadie could relate to.

Her wet hair hung down her bare shoulders, drying in curls that sprang up owing to the significant length now missing. Ultimately Sadie wasn't sure if she was more grateful for the tweezers or for Nurse Gonzales who carefully brushed and braided her abominably long hair only to cut the braid with a sharp pair of surgical scissors, freeing her hair to hang just below her shoulder blades. Without the bedraggled strands and now with her eyebrows under control, Sadie felt marginally more human. At the very least, she could see the shadow of her old self peering out from behind her gaunt features.

The towel she wrapped around her loosened when she tilted her head and smoothed her fingers over the skin on her forehead, tracing over an old scar. Sadie wasn't sure why she hastened to tighten the towel; there was nobody in the small bathroom connected to her room. Nobody could see the way her shoulders stuck out beneath her skin or the pronounced wells above her collar bones. Except, Sadie didn't want to see her body. She didn't want to see her hip bones jutting forward, pronounced due to the total lack of curvature on her frame. A tiny, rational voice in her head reminded her that time would restore the damage and she wouldn't look like this forever but as she stared at her hollow cheeks and the dark circles beneath her eyes, Sadie had a hard time imagining she would ever look like herself ever again. And so she tightened the towel, hitching it higher over her chest to cover as much of her body as she could.

Despite her reservations about her body, Sadie was grateful to see her skin clean, scrubbed to a pink glow. Nurse Gonzales, though she still gave Sadie a wide berth, was kind enough to show her how to use the tap in the shower before taking her leave back to the observation room where Sadie was certain she was constantly checking her watch, wondering what was taking so long. Sadie hadn't missed the care the nurse took with her, touching only if she had to, keeping her at arm's length and watching her with an eagle eye the entire time. If Sadie didn't know any better she would have thought that Nurse Gonzales was afraid to be alone with her at all and halfway expected Sadie to snap and attack her at any given moment. She hadn't missed the way her hand hovered over an unusual looking rectangular object on her hip, the way a soldier's fingers might twitch over his pistol before drawing it to shoot. Sadie had no intention of attacking anyone or attempting a break out. All she wanted was information and even if she was inclined to try and escape, she knew her weak legs wouldn't carry her too far.

Even the walk from her bed to the bathroom tired her out and she had to sit for a while before she felt strong enough to get into the shower. Once she was on her feet and standing still she managed to stay upright, gaining some sense of rejuvenation from the simple joy of a shower. For a long time she stood under the piping hot stream of water, letting the phenomenal pressure beat down on her back and face. One thing Sadie noticed since she'd woken up was that she couldn't seem to get warm. The hot water was more than a luxury, it was an opportunity to infuse some heat back into her body. When her skin was pink and her fingers wrinkled she relented but still took her time washing her hair and body, using the razor provided to shave her legs and under arms, bringing some smoothness back to her skin. The surprisingly long, dark hair that covered her legs only served as another mystery. Where had she been that she couldn't shave her legs? She allowed herself to focus on that question, one of far too many, through the remainder of her shower right up until she dried off with one of the absurdly soft towels provided to her. Even when she'd stayed the night in a five star hotel in San Francisco her first night back from the war, the towels hadn't been so nice. Sadie felt as though she'd wrapped her body in a literal cloud only to follow it up with lotion so smooth it felt like silk whispering across her skin.

Those little luxuries put her in a slight state of ease. She'd seen first hand how HYDRA ran its operations during the war, the state of the factories and the way it treated its prisoners. Sadie had a hard time believing that if she actually was a prisoner she'd be treated to hot showers, expensive towels, and fine bath products. The faint scent of rose wafted from her curls and she had to pause midway through plucking another stray hair to cage a smile. Just the thought of a HYDRA guard or agent being sent out to purchase rose-scented shampoo was too much even for her. But more than that, Sadie couldn't imagine that HYDRA agents would be so careful with her, attending to her medical and personal needs or, most importantly, divulging such critical information. Wouldn't she be kept in the dark? The less she knew the better? A well-trained HYDRA agent wouldn't go about throwing his feet up on chairs, proclaiming himself to be a Stark, telling her the truth about what happened to her or-her breath hitched-revealing to her that Bucky was still alive.

Hearing Tony confirm that Bucky didn't die on that snowy day threatened to undo what little composure she still maintained. His simple '_yeah_' needled the long-dormant hope within her, a part of her she buried deep in the darkest place of her heart along with every prayer she'd ever said out of desperation to see Bucky even one last time. It was simply too much to believe and far too much to hope and yet there was Tony saying what she wanted to hear more than anything. Sadie went to touch her necklace only to remember it wasn't there. She felt the absence of the rings like a wound, a pain that seared through her mind where sense of security should have been. The sapphire engagement ring was the only connection left that she had to Bucky and now to her whole life, supposedly nothing more than memories collecting dust for over seventy years.

Once more she sucked in a tight breath at the thought.

"It's impossible," she declared to her reflection despite the modern trappings surrounding her. "Simply impossible."

And yet, Sadie knew it wasn't. She only had the scant evidence of her room and of the conversation she had with Tony Stark to back her up but deep in her heart, she knew she was facing a new reality. The complications that came with this new world were so innumerable that Sadie didn't even know where to start and she found herself preserving what little sanity she had left by pushing off the worst of her thoughts, of the hard truth about the people she loved and the life she'd worked so hard to rebuild. Instead she focused on her eyebrows, on the feel of the towel enrobing her body, and the little details that jumped out at her to keep her from drowning in the veritable sea of her new reality. She eyed the scar above her eyebrow and looked to her hands for the tiny white nicks that littered her skin, another on her forearm from the same attack that killed Betty. When she swiveled in her chair and looked over her shoulder she discovered the criss-cross of white lines from a shell burst in Japan. Sadie could just barely reach around herself to brush over the scars, recalling the sensation of being hit, that the burning pieces of shell were nothing more than a knife slicing through butter.

"War is hell," she murmured to herself, turning back around to inspect her face once more.

Satisfied that she'd gotten every unruly hair, she applied a thin layer of moisturizer to her face and turned to the stack of neatly folded clothing on the far end of the bathroom counter. Sadie felt a certain sense of trepidation just looking at the clothing. Judging from Tony Stark's casual appearance and Nurse Gonzales' uniform of pale blue pants and a shirt, Sadie braced herself for the worst. What did women wear these days?

She found underwear sitting on top of the stack, made of soft cotton and cut a good deal smaller than she remembered. There were no garters or stockings laid out for her and what she assumed was the bra consisted of stretchy fabric that hugged her chest, the front coming down to a point between her small breasts and trimmed with scalloped lace. Sadie tugged on the loose pants that only stayed on her hips when she tied the drawstring. A long sleeved shirt unfurled in her hands and just before she went to pull it over her head, she caught her reflection in the mirror once more. Even when she was healthy Sadie never possessed the type of bombshell curves that graced movie screens and the covers of women's magazines. The war certainly hadn't helped with any vain pursuit of an hourglass shape but even during the height of the war, she'd still maintained a healthy weight and strong muscles. Atrophy was the only word that came to Sadie's mind upon examining her torso. When she shifted to turn, her ribs poked out but something else caught her eye.

A little area of mottled skin curved just around her waist. Reaching behind herself, Sadie felt out the area that she thought was just a few patches of rough skin but upon turning around, the shirt in her hand fell to the floor at her feet. Three thick lines of scar tissue rose up from her side and curved around to her back. Raised and red, Sadie would recognize burns anywhere; she'd treated so many burns during the war that she couldn't even begin to count them all. But none of the burns she saw in field hospitals approximated the precision of the lines on her side, which reminded her more of the marks she might see on livestock or a burn taking on the precise shape of an iron left too long on a shirt, not the formless shapes that burns usually took.

"Branding," she whispered in a hollow voice even as she craned her neck to get a better look at the burns. "I was branded."

Even the angle of the burns suggested possibilities so horrible that a shiver ripped down Sadie's spine. Her chest tightened and when she blinked she swore she could feel a boot pinning her to a dank floor and the feel of her arm being jerked back to hold her in place. She sat down on the chair hard, one hand pressed to her marks and the other against her breastbone where her heart began to race. The sensations rang through her like echoes of a memory that she couldn't reach because it was trapped behind frosted glass in her mind.

Was that it? Was that why she couldn't remember? Had the trauma been so bad her mind literally blocked her from accessing the memory?

Sadie fingered one of her curls as she considered the pieces of the puzzle laid out before her. The picture that formed wasn't just ugly, it was terrifying. She didn't realize her breaths were coming out in sharp, punctuated bursts until a knock on the bathroom door nearly sent her out of her skin.

"Miss Reid?"

Sadie deflated in relief. Nurse Gonzales propped open the door to peer through a crack.

"Miss Reid, are you alright?"

The tip of her index finger traced the curve of one burn. Sadie mouthed wordlessly at her. When she didn't immediately reply, Nurse Gonzales pushed the door open and tentatively approached her. The air of fear and caution surrounding Nurse Gonzales reminded Sadie of how she felt when trying to catch and help a wounded barn cat as a child, desperate to help but still scared of the potential for scratches. Her shoulders sagged, closing her chest in on itself.

"I just wish I could remember what happened," she whispered, too broken to keep up her guard. "I want to know how I got here."

The rigid lines wrinkling Nurse Gonzales's forehead eased. Crossing the threshold, she knelt down and retrieved Sadie's shirt. "I know you do."

"It doesn't feel real. Mr. Stark says it's twenty-sixteen and that he's Howard's son but how can I believe it? Why should I?"

"May I be honest with you, Miss Reid?" Nurse Gonzales asked even as she bunched up the shirt to bring it over Sadie's head.

"Of course."

"Do you have any other choice but to trust Mr. Stark?"

The question ground Sadie's thoughts to a screeching halt. Her mouth rounded in soft surprise and she looked around the bathroom, taking in the shining tiled shower, the sleek black countertop and the soft light emanating from around the square mirror. Every angle and aspect of the bathroom and her hospital room was foreign to her, something that might come from the wildest imaginations of writers picturing the future. Sadie caught her reflection once more and slowly, like a waterfall thawing in spring, the full weight of her situation began to trickle down on her until it became a steady stream. She was a fraction of the woman she'd been, ripped out of her life with no warning and no mercy. If the condition of her body and her mind's refusal to allow her to remember were any indication she'd been subject to brutal conditions and even torture, leaving her so weak she could barely walk across a room without needing rest. Moreover, she had no idea where she was and most importantly she was alone.

The stream burst into a waterfall, gushing over her with a bitter swell. All she had was herself and the word of Tony Stark, the only person who had given her any sort of tangible information and answers as to what happened to her. Yesterday she'd been in Hamburg, preparing to move from one group of comrades to another and today she was completely and utterly alone. And what was worse, if Tony truly was telling the truth then everyone she knew was likely dead or old beyond recognition. If Bucky was alive then Tony's reaction suggested he wasn't in any condition to find her, if he even knew she was alive at all. Sadie sucked in a deep breath, pressing a hand atop her breastbone where she felt the sharp staccato of her heart.

The only thing she knew for certain was that she was alive and, for the moment, she was being given proper medical care and hospitality. Tony and Nurse Gonzales certainly didn't seem intent on causing Sadie any harm. The nurse in Sadie took one look at her reflection and saw the dire need for that care. In fact, there was a small part of her that couldn't believe she was upright and alive at all. If Tony was going out of his way to rehabilitate her then that spoke volumes about his character. And really, when the situation came down to it what other choice did Sadie have but to trust Tony Stark?

"No, I suppose I don't."

Nurse Gonzales took one of Sadie's arms and gently guided it through the sleeve. Heeding her silent direction, Sadie took over, pulling the light grey shirt on the rest of the way. With the nurse's help, Sadie got back to her feet so she could smooth the shirt over the waistband of her pants and she sighed. If it truly was twenty-sixteen Sadie had to give the new century one thing: the clothes were quite comfortable. Slowly, she progressed from the bathroom back into her main room where, to her surprise, the lights were no longer blue but rather a warm yellow glow that reminded her of candle light. She started to ask Nurse Gonzales if someone changed the light bulbs but thought better of it. Sadie wasn't sure she could take too much more new information and there was a more important question dancing on the tip of her tongue.

Once she was settled on her bed, the back adjusted so she could sit up, Sadie touched Nurse Gonzales's wrist.

"Mr. Stark-Tony-said that I was in something called cryostasis? Am I saying that right?" Nurse Gonzales nodded. "Will you explain to me what that is?"

Nurse Gonzales's heavily penciled eyebrows snapped together. "You really don't know, do you?"

"I'm afraid I don't."

At last the hesitation fueling Nurse Gonzales's arms-length treatment of Sadie dissipated. She pinched the wide bridge of her nose and muttered under her breath. "_Ay Dios mio_." And then she planted her hands on the side of Sadie's bed and pushed herself to sit on it. Pointing a warning finger at her, Nurse Gonzales's features turned stern on a dime. "I can't tell you much or it'll be my head but," she deflated, mouth softening in sympathy. "At the very least you deserve to know about the mechanics of how you ended up here."

"That's all I'm asking, Nurse Gonzales."

"Call me Gabriela."

The simple gesture of Gabriela giving Sadie her first name meant everything to her. HYDRA goons were nameless, trained into operating without identity. Maybe Sadie didn't know what happened to her but for the moment she was safe and that was really all she could ask. Hopefully the answers would come. With any luck she would soon know what happened to her and-her heart leapt into her throat-she would see Bucky at last. But for now it was enough that she was protected and finally about to begin piecing the puzzle together, beginning with learning about cryostasis.

X X X

There were two conference rooms at the Avengers compound. One of them served as a sort of meeting place for the group to come together to brief and debrief on missions, to plan maneuvers, and to review training programs. The second conference room occupied prime real estate in the main building on the top floor, with floor-to-ceiling windows taking up one entire wall that overlooked the grounds and the quinjet hangar. Tony never really appreciated the panoramic quality the windows afforded or even stopped to appreciate that his fortune built everything on the grounds. And even now he thought the most visually arresting part of the conference room wasn't the view itself but rather the woman standing at the windows.

Sadie stood perfectly still, one hand raised to cover her mouth and the other wrapped around her middle. Even cleaned up and sporting a fresh - if somewhat uneven - haircut, she still looked as though she'd been dragged through hell and back. Tony thought she already looked as though she'd put on a pound or two since being in the care of the doctors working at the compound. Her pallor wasn't quite so shocking in the pale grey open cardigan she wore, made of a thick cotton blend that softened the hard edges and angles of her shoulders and elbows. Even though she was dressed in modern clothing and surrounded by sleek furniture and shining surfaces, Sadie still looked like a woman out of time. It might have been the way she stood, perfectly straight with a hint of ease, poise that Tony didn't often see in modern women - as though Sadie could float through a packed room or twirl through a hundred waltzes without missing a beat. She held herself well, far more composed than at their first meeting and though he was loathe to admit it, Tony thought she possessed the exact same quality that Steve did. Sadie, despite the horrors she'd clearly endured, was timeless and no matter how awful she looked, that was what made her so captivating.

Tony realized he was blocking the doorway and staring. When he drew into the conference room to join her at the window, he had to fight his smirk; her eyes were wide and behind her limp fingers, her mouth hung open.

"Nice view," he remarked, shoving his hands in his pockets.

She twitched in response to his arrival but was too taken by the scenery to tear her eyes from it. A couple of lines formed on her forehead when her brows drew together in confusion. "Are those-airplanes?"

Tony followed the line of her gaze down to the open quinjet hangar. "Yep," he said, popping the 'p.' "A lot quieter than C-47s."

He was surprised when she snorted in a half-laugh and rolled her eyes. "Mortar blasts are quieter than C-47s," she remarked with a hint of acidity that he wished he didn't like so much. Her eyes slid sideways to regard him and she lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "I'm not much for flying."

"Well, who is," he remarked sarcastically

Sadie's lips drew into a faint smile. "Captain Rogers was. On flights that required combat jumps, he used to sit next to the open door so he could look at the scenery."

Tony didn't know why but of all the things Sadie had done and said since waking up, that was the most surprising both in its content and how much it hurt. In the weeks following their blow-out fight in Siberia, Tony had done his damn best to avoid thinking about Steve Rogers and his stupid... well... everything. Hearing Sadie, his contemporary and former comrade, make such a casual, fond comment undid him in a way he didn't expect. Of course Steve did stupid things like sit next to open airplane doors. What else would he do? Next to Tony himself, Steve Rogers was perhaps the most reckless man on the planet.

"So," he said, more sharply than he intended in his quest to change the subject. "Believe me yet?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"There's always a choice."

"After seeing all of this," she jerked her chin toward the quinjets, the perfectly manicured lawns, the modern architecture and brand new cars parked outside of buildings, "I don't see how I can believe anything otherwise. Besides," she turned to face him, crossing her arms over her chest. "You really do remind me of Howard."

Tony grimaced. "Anything but that, I beg you."

Sadie opened her mouth to ask why but another voice cut her off. "Sarah Grace Reid, you have caused quite a number of headaches around here."

As one, Sadie and Tony turned to see Secretary Ross stride into the conference room. Behind him, an assistant filed in to lay out a thick file along with a few large manila envelopes. In comparison to Tony's t-shirt and jacket and Sadie's drawstring pants and the open-front cardigan she pulled tighter around herself, Ross was laughably overdressed. Tony supposed a suit and tie was part and parcel of the Secretary of State gig but the crisp white shirt and vivid red tie were more than just the first items Ross grabbed when he rolled out of bed that morning. Everything about his appearance suggested intimidation, though all Tony wanted to do was reach out and straighten the crooked American flag pin on Ross's lapel. He unbuttoned the middle button of his suit jacket and motioned for both of them to come to the table.

"Nice power tie," he snipped, earning a glare from Ross that might have cracked lesser men. "Am I going to have to do introductions again? Gosh Mr. Secretary, where are your manners?" Ross's ire only further clouded on his face to the point where Tony wouldn't have been surprised to see a miniature thunder cloud appear over his head complete with itty bitty forks of lightning to accompany his deep scowl. Gesturing out to Ross, Tony raised his eyebrows at Sadie who seemed reluctant to come to the long conference room table from her place at the windows. "Thaddeus Ross, Secretary of State, meet Sadie Reid, founder of the International Human Aide Project and vice versa."

Tony enjoyed the way Sadie's mouth fell open in surprise. To her credit, she recovered from her initial shock quickly though she didn't make a move to sit in the seat Ross gestured toward.

"I apologize if I caused any trouble, Mr. Secretary. To be honest I think I'm just as confused about my circumstances as the rest of you."

"Well, we'll see about that," Ross muttered and renewed his gesture toward the empty chair directly across from his. "Take a seat."

Sadie only moved to sit when Tony pulled out the chair, gripping the armrests tightly to support herself when she lowered down. Tony wandered away from them, choosing to take up a post on the short wall adjacent to the windows where he could observe both of them at the same angle, curious as to what Ross had to ask but not so invested as to actually jump into the fray. If this first meeting was a test to determine the extent of what Sadie knew, Tony wanted to leave it to the professional - so to speak. Sadie arranged herself as best as she could, drawing the cardigan tighter over her white shirt and crossing her ankles beneath the table. Even under all of this intense scrutiny and so far out of her element that she may as well have been on a different planet, she managed to maintain her composure and although Tony didn't want to appreciate that, he did.

Ross opened the file in front of him and flipped through a few pages, glancing up at her every so often. A scowl pulled at Tony's mouth. He could recognize an intimidation tactic when he saw it but he couldn't see the point or purpose in trying to make her so uncomfortable as to break the silence first. To her credit, Sadie remained silent, folding her hands in her lap and waiting for Ross to speak first. When he realized she wasn't going to budge, he stopped flipping through her chart. Their eyes met and Tony unconsciously leaned forward just a touch.

"You have a fascinating story, Captain Reid," Ross began only for Sadie to cut him off.

"Miss Reid," she corrected gently. "I was honorably discharged from the Army."

Ross paused, missing a beat before he nodded. "Very well, Miss Reid. As I was saying, your history is quite the read. Joined the Army in nineteen forty-two, served with the 80th field hospital before transferring to the SSR where you served for over a year and landed with the 381st station hospital. Wounded in Italy, Belgium, and Okinawa. Recipient of the silver star, three purple hearts, and enough unit citations to sink a ship," Ross flipped a page and nodded. "Honorably discharged from the Army in '46 and instead of going back to your old life, you went on to create the International Humanitarian Aid Project with the goal of helping to rebuild post-war Europe and bring medical care to the communities hit hardest, only to completely fall off the radar in '49 on your way from one mission site in Hamburg to another in Ypres. You were supposed to arrive on the evening of June 12 but you never showed at the airfield and in fact, you were never officially recorded as leaving Hamburg."

"That much I've put together, Mr. Secretary," Sadie replied, shifting in her seat to sit up a little straighter.

"So, you remember all of your past?"

Sadie pursed her lips. "Of course I do. Except-"

"Except what, Miss Reid?" Ross inquired even as he flicked through a few more pages in his file, sounding half-distracted and uninterested in her caveat.

Sadie's jaw clenched. "Except how I ended up here."

Ross snapped the file shut and clasped his hands atop it. If Tony didn't know any better, he would have thought he saw a predatory light shine in Ross's eyes. He seemed to be trying to circle Sadie, not bothering with the same niceties afforded to Steve when he was found or even attempting to ease her into this new world situation.

"Tell me everything you remember from the day you disappeared."

At first Tony thought maybe Sadie was going to refuse. She twisted her hands in her lap, tightening and releasing the tendons just beneath her skin. Some sort of defense mechanism kicked in, perhaps a gut instinct that she didn't want to divulge that information to Ross, that she didn't trust him and Tony couldn't say he blamed her. But then she eased up and, realizing that there was no other option before her but to speak, she began to divulge the story. The tale she wove started the morning she woke up at the old German barracks IHAP was using at quarters for their group going through the drive through Hamburg to the small airfield that she was scheduled to depart from to Ypres. Sadie explained how she'd met with Agent Lucas Murphy, an early SHIELD operative who turned out to be a HYDRA operative and who happened to be working directly for Dr. Arnim Zola.

"The last thing I can remember is Agent Murphy giving me Bucky Barnes' dog tags. I tried to escape but the door was locked and I couldn't open it in time. Agent Murphy used chloroform to knock me out and that's it. The next thing I remember is waking up for a moment before passing out again. Then I woke up here."

Ross stared at her for a long time after she finished speaking. All throughout Sadie's explanation, she never once took an unusual pause or even hesitated. Conviction laced through her voice, a pleasant southern drawl that Tony hadn't expected though he supposed made sense considering her birthplace. If she was lying, Tony certainly couldn't find a tell though he knew that didn't preclude the possibility. Experience was a brutal teacher and he knew better than most that even the people he trusted could lie without arousing suspicion, as easily as breathing.

"You don't remember what happened to you at all," Ross persisted, sounding thoroughly unconvinced. "Not where you were taken? Nothing about what you saw or might have done?" He let out a scoff. "Not even how you ended up in a cryostasis tube for the last seventy years?"

Sadie scowled. A little color swirled into her cheeks. "Not even that. I didn't know what cryostasis was until Nurse Gonzales was kind enough to explain it to me yesterday."

"Well that's a shame, considering a whole team of doctors doesn't have a damned clue how you survived cryo in the first place."

That got Tony's attention. He'd heard that the scientists and doctors contracted to review Sadie's blood samples and medical charts were still hard at work but this was the first he'd heard that the team was struggling to make headway into an explanation. This in and of itself was a surprise considering the wealth of resources and information the doctors had to work with. There were entire files devoted to how Steve survived crashing the Valkyrie, spending over sixty years in a frozen lock up only to thaw out perfectly unscathed. That, on top of all of the information recently gathered from the HYDRA facility in Siberia, should have provided all the answers necessary to determine what factors had to be present in order for Sadie to survive. A scowl touched his lips as he started to wonder whether Sadie was about to throw a big wrench into that calculus considering she was nowhere close to the perfect physical condition both Steve and Barnes presented when they went into the ice. This begged the question, how did a half-starved woman swaying on death's doorstep survive not only cryostasis but her traumatic thawing on top of it?

Sadie looked as though she was about to ask half a dozen more questions in her quest for more information but stopped herself at the last second. She sensed Ross's thinly-veiled irritation at her lack of useful response, if his terse silence was anything to go off.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Secretary but I don't have any more answers than you do and believe me, I've been wracking my brain trying to find anything but it's just not there."

Ross pinched the bridge of his nose before giving into an exaggerated nod. "Alright, then let's go back to the day you disappeared. You said that everything goes blank after this Agent Murphy drugged you and gave you these?"

From within the inner pocket of his suit jacket, Ross produced a shining object. With the ball chain looped around his finger, he allowed two steel dog tags to drop down, twisting to and fro. Sadie rose up higher in her seat, lips parted in surprise just as Tony started to pull away from the wall. She held out a hand for the dog tags and Ross started to withdraw his hand only to think better of his reticence and let the tags fall into her open palm where she brought them closer for inspection.

"Yes," she whispered. The way she brushed her thumb over the raised lettering unsettled Tony. Sadie regarded Bucky Barnes's dog tags the way a pirate might value buried treasure or a thief might covet a priceless diamond, precious beyond recorded value.

"Who exactly was Agent Murphy?"

Sadie's brow furrowed. "When I knew him he was an SSR agent tasked with running reconnaissance missions in Nazi-occupied territory, specifically France. He was wounded during the same mission that saw his partner killed in action. I served as his attending nurse before he was moved to a rehabilitation facility."

"Did you know him well?"

"Only as a patient. We shared pleasantries but weren't friends by any means. We did frequent the same pubs and dance halls but that wasn't unusual. The SSR staff often all went to the same places."

"How would he get a hold of Barnes's dog tags?"

"I don't know." Sadie pushed the two ID tags away with her thumb to reveal the Saint Christopher's medal beneath it. Tony scowled; the presence of the medal came as something of a surprise when he first inspected the tags but upon reviewing old SSR photographs on the flight back to New York, Tony discovered a handful of photographs of Barnes with his dog tags hanging over the top of a wool sweater and there the medal hung, further proof of authenticity. Sadie's brow furrowed, mouth twitching at the corners as she tried to cage a frown that overtook her entire face. Tony realized then, just a beat too late, that while Bucky Barnes's dog tags meant almost nothing to him they were the only tangible piece of Sadie's life left, her sole connection to not only her former fiancé but everything else - a reminder that this was all real and the world she knew was gone, reduced to nothing more than a memory.

Tony's insides squirmed when she blinked away a few stray tears and drew the dog tags closer to herself and asked Ross the question that he'd been asking himself for weeks now. "Where is he?"

"Excuse me?"

"Mr. St-" Sadie shook her head once when Tony cleared his throat to correct her. "Tony told me that Bucky is still alive so I'm assuming whatever happened to me is connected to whatever happened to him. Mr. Secretary, where is Bucky?"

Sadie was far better at connecting the dots than Tony wanted to give her credit for, though he supposed in her empty hospital room she had nothing but time to mull things over. The measured tone of Sadie's voice might have fooled most men and it certainly appeared to fool Ross, but Tony was an expert in restraining his true feelings and he could hear the tinges of desperation clinging to her drawn out vowels. Even the way she tipped slightly forward and tightened her grip on the dog tags all spelled out her eagerness to be reunited with her old love.

"We don't know where Barnes is," Ross said gruffly, fixing Sadie with a beady eye. "I was hoping you'd be able to shed some light on his whereabouts."

"I'm not sure how I could possibly help you. The last time I saw Bucky was in nineteen forty-five, the morning he died." Her frown deepened, trembling at the edges. "Allegedly died." A pregnant pause hung in the air wherein Ross continued to watch Sadie warily all while her face took her through a myriad of emotions before her sadness gave way to a scowl that pursed her lips and hollowed her cheeks even further. "Mr. Secretary, the amount of information I don't understand about what's going on could fill a dozen history books but the way you're talking it sounds like-did something happen to Bucky? Is he alright?"

"As far as we know, Barnes is alive." The sharp glare Ross threw toward Tony was nothing short of loathing. "He escaped our custody with the help of Captain Rogers."

Sadie choked on a cough that sent her bony hand to her chest as she struggled to recover.

"_Excuse me_?" She spluttered. "Steve is alive?"

Tony snorted in humorless laughter that drew all attention to him. Holding up a sharp hand, he drummed up an unconvincing smirk. "Oh, don't mind me."

All he could think about in the moment was that if she really didn't know what happened to Barnes then she was in for an unpleasant shock regardless of what Ross decided to tell her. Tony almost felt bad for her, dwarfed in the office chair and clutching the dog tags as though her life depended on them. He wasn't even sure where Ross could possibly start to explain the extraordinary events that spanned whole decades all leading up to now. How Bucky Barnes went from being regarded as a war hero to a war criminal was a story that could take days to fully explore and Tony knew for certain that he wanted no part of it.

"Mr. Secretary, please tell me what's going on."

Sadie's soft plea carried with is a tinge of desperation and sadness, as though she already knew that the answer wasn't going to be what she wanted to hear but had to nonetheless. Tony's stomach twisted itself into consecutive knots, each one pulling harder than the last until the tightness pressed up against his diaphragm and compressed his lungs. There was no doubt in his mind now that she was an innocent victim, another person who got caught up in Steve's wide web and ended up as collateral for God-only-knew what purpose. A vein of sympathy opened up in him, taking in Sadie's doomed hope and knowing that her already upside down and shattered world was about to be further decimated. The corners of his mouth twitched toward a frown; he wasn't so certain he wanted to be present for this.

As if the universe heard his silent dread, a flash of movement in the glass door caught his attention. Rhodey appeared, rolling to a stop in his wheelchair (something Tony hoped was a temporary measure) and jerked his head, beckoning him to leave the conference room. On the one hand he knew that leaving in the middle of this crucial first meeting was not only incredibly rude but might be upsetting to Sadie. And yet, Tony just knew he couldn't stand there and listen to Ross lay out the laundry list of Barnes's crimes that culminated in the death of his parents. Hearing the tortured history of Bucky Barnes was too soon and much too fresh. And so he moved toward the door, catching the attention of both Ross and Sadie.

"Carry on." He waved a dismissive hand that stopped Sadie before she even started to get out of her chair. Ross merely rolled his eyes but returned to business as usual. Before he could witness the concern and disappointment filter across Sadie's face at the loss of her sole possible ally, Tony turned his back on her and left the room to where Rhodey waited for him.

"How's it going in there?"

"Fantastic," Tony deadpanned. "Nothing like dealing with another one hundred year old amnesiac ice pop."

Together they moved away from the conference room to one of the sofas in an open common area. Tony flopped down, wiping a hand over his face. He didn't need to look at Rhodey to know he wore a stern expression. That look of long-suffering and consternation was a semi-permanent fixture for his friend, perfected after years of dealing with his antics.

"None of this bothers you?"

Rhodey's question could have referred to plenty of things. After all, what wasn't Tony bothered about these days?

"You're going to have to be more specific."

"All of this business with Sadie Reid," Tony peeked through his fingers to see Rhodey gesture toward the conference room. "Keeping her locked up in a hospital room with no access to the outside world, interrogating her like she's a prisoner, giving her zero time to acclimate to this huge change. Doesn't it strike you as shady that Ross hasn't informed the UN yet?"

"It's only been a few days."

"It's been over a week from the time she was found until now. Ross had every record of her ever being in that hospital in Romania erased; it's like he doesn't ever want anyone finding out about her."

"Can you blame him?" Tony asked, sitting up only to hunch over, bracing his elbows on his knees. "Rogers single-handedly broke four people out of the most secure prison on the planet. How much do you want to bet he's going to come for Reid the second he finds out she's still alive?"

"That's not a good enough reason to hold her prisoner. Ross is treating her like she's already guilty but he doesn't even know the crime."

"What are we supposed to do? Hand her an iPhone and drop her off in Times Square?" Tony argued, meeting Rhodey's unwavering gaze. "Nobody even knows how she survived cryo. Given her physical condition and the obvious signs of torture, she should be dead. Ross is doing what he thinks is necessary to protect her and the rest of the world."

"You think she's enhanced."

"It'd explain how she managed to survive."

Rhodey rocked back in his seat, drawing the line of Tony's gaze to his wheelchair. He'd be lying if he said one of the biggest motivators for rushing the job on Rhodey's prosthetics was so he never had to see his friend in a wheelchair ever again. For his part, Rhodey seemed to be taking the radical change to his life infinitely better than Tony. There was just something so defeating about seeing Rhodey quickly master the mechanics of the wheelchair and rolling around the compound instead of striding along the way he used to. Of all of the wells of guilt currently residing in Tony's heart, Rhodey's paralysis was the deepest, tinged with the knowledge that it was an avoidable tragedy and almost entirely Tony's fault.

"Tony." Rhodey's firm call brought him out of his thoughts and back to the subject at hand. "It's one thing to have her stay here until we figure out all of those details. But the Accords are clear on the subject. If she's enhanced, the UN Council needs to be informed so it can come together to determine a course of action. And for another thing, holding her in a windowless room without the opportunity to begin catching up isn't just cruel, it's torture."

_Torture_. Now there was a word Tony tried not to dwell on too much. But it was difficult not to think of torture after he reviewed results of Sadie's cursory medical exam and the handful of x-rays technicians managed to get at the hospital in Romania. The evidence was littered all over her body - remodeled fractures to her ribs and arms, the emaciated state of her once-strong body, and the stark burns that weren't the product of any fire or explosion from the war. Was keeping Sadie locked away in that hospital room doing more harm than good? Were they just perpetuating the cycle of torture she'd endured even if she couldn't remember?

The answer was a hard, unequivocal yes.

Tony turned his head toward the conference room where he could just make out Sadie. Gone was the poker face she wore so well. Her mouth hung open in distress and she held her hands close to her chest, clutching Barnes' dog tags. Ross must have been getting into the gory details of the Winter Soldier and, just like that, had taken the last shred of hope she'd been holding onto.

"We don't have any reason to suspect she's done anything wrong," Rhodey pressed on, easing off his hardline tactics. "Even if she can't leave the compound, Sadie deserves more than what amounts to a jail cell. She deserves a little bit of freedom and the chance to read for herself about the last seven decades."

Tony bit the inside of his cheek, wrestling down the deluge of bitter feelings that bubbled up in his stomach. He could see the challenge laid out before him now. Someway, somehow he had to learn how to separate Sadie Reid from Bucky Barnes. Tony couldn't be like Ross; he refused to stoop to that level of paranoia and harshness. Rhodey also made an excellent, irrefutable point that Ross was putting the cart before the horse. Based on all the evidence amassed so far, there was every reason to believe that Sadie Reid spent almost the entirety of her missing time in deep sleep. There wasn't even a whiff of a rumor to suggest she'd done anything wrong except be in the wrong place at the wrong time and fall in love with the wrong man. None of those offenses rose to this level of punishment.

Innocent until proven guilty.

Frowning, Tony side-eyed Rhodey and then blew out an exaggerated sigh.

"God, I hate admitting when you're right."

X X X

"Kitchen's that way. We try to keep it stocked with the basics but whatever you do, don't eat Happy's peanut butter. He gets cranky when people eat his food."

"O-okay."

"Someone'll show you how to use the coffee maker and the other appliances. You're gonna love the coffee, way better than the crap the Army gave you."

Sadie raised an eyebrow. "Gasoline is probably better than Army-issued coffee."

A sideways glance allowed her to catch his fleeting smirk and Sadie wondered if he ever laughed. The more time she spent with Tony Stark in fleeting chunks, the more he presented himself as a rather complicated puzzle. Although he possessed a biting sense of humor and a metric ton of sarcasm, he didn't seem to find much humor in the surrounding world. She wondered what it really took to make him laugh and whether the seemingly permanent air of snark was a cover for something deeper. What was Tony like with the people who really got to know him? She suspected those people were few and far between. Absently she wondered what Steve made of Tony; he'd never had much patience for overly sarcastic, overconfident types.

"The bathroom is communal but that's no big deal since you're the only one staying on this floor. It should have everything you need."

Tony pointed to a door marked with a small sign bearing simplistic, geometric renderings of a man and a woman. They passed the bathroom with no ceremony, the same way they'd toured the other portions of this large complex on the slow walk from her hospital room to her new quarters. Sadie tried her hardest to keep her shock to herself but the task proved difficult in the face of so much glass, so many pristine shining surfaces - the futuristic furniture and every little detail in between. Lights flickered to life without having to flip a switch whenever they entered a room. Cool air circulated through the compound from invisible places and she was fast-learning that the advanced technology used to monitor her health was just a drop in a bucket.

That wasn't to say she wasn't grateful for Tony's spur-of-the-moment decision to upgrade her living situation. She would be glad for a room with windows so she could feel the sun on her face. Sleeping in a real bed would be a nice change of pace from her confining hospital bed, as would the promised privacy; she'd learned to hate the one-way mirror in her hospital room, never knowing when she was and wasn't being monitored. Maybe Tony wasn't much of a tour guide but that didn't really matter to Sadie. He was giving her a little bit of freedom and space to wrap her brain around everything she'd learned in the last twelve hours.

"So, your room is here. It's not much but better than your old digs."

Sadie arched an eyebrow but passed through the door when Tony opened it. A double bed stood against the far wall, flanked by floor-to-ceiling windows and covered with a thick pale grey bedspread. The nightstands on either side were free of clutter, save for an alarm clock and a lamp on one side. On one of the adjacent walls, a simple desk and chair resided where three stacks of books stood.

"I thought you'd want to get a jump start on catching up. A lot's happened since you went under."

Sadie drifted away from Tony and lifted one of the top books. _America in the Post-War World_. She brushed her fingers over the cover depicting the American flag waving across a smoky background. A cursory glance at the other titles revealed more tomes on all of the history that she missed. Many of the titles and phrases made little sense to Sadie but she supposed that was the point. There was more than enough on a personal level that she was struggling to understand, so much so that she'd forgotten the whole rest of the world continued to spin on even when hers came to an abrupt halt.

"They're mostly in chronological order," Tony pointed out and Sadie nodded, swallowing hard.

Another stack caught her eye, not made of books but manila envelopes instead. She set the book down and reached for the top file. Flipping it open, she found herself looking at Steve's old army photograph, paperclipped to a memorandum dated back to 2012. Seeing that year in print felt wrong and Sadie's addled brain wanted to assign a different value to the digits than a year. She scanned the top page, confirming everything that the Secretary of State told her. Steve was discovered in the Arctic, frozen and perfectly preserved in the wreckage of the Valkyrie.

"Ross wants you to catch up on all of that before your next meeting."

Sadie didn't mistake the disdain in Tony's voice. She suspected that he hated being told what to do and taking orders from a man as belittling as Secretary Ross. Their first meeting left an unpleasant taste in her mouth and Ross gave her the impression that he didn't believe a word she said. In fact, if Sadie didn't know any better, she would have thought he was determined to try and root some secret out of her that she was unaware of keeping. Regardless, she wasn't looking forward to their next scheduled meeting in two days' time.

Steve's thick file still in her hands, she glanced over the rest of the files and stacks of books. Her heart sank. Turning back to Tony, she frowned.

"This is only the tip of the iceberg, isn't it?"

Not a single one of his muscles twitched in response. Once again, Sadie struggled to discern where Tony stood. Then he shrugged one shoulder.

"Welcome to the twenty-first century, Nurse Reid. You're gonna love it."

**A/N: For those of you wondering when Bucky and Steve are going to appear I ask for a little bit of patience! This story is kind of like a giant puzzle and I'm just putting the edge pieces together right now. But they are both coming and will have first appearances soon, I promise!**

**In the meantime I'd love to know what you're thinking so far. As difficult as Tony is to nail I've had fun writing his character thus far! So, loved it, hated it, feeling sorry for poor Sadie (ignore my evil cackling in the background) I want to hear your thoughts! – Much love, Kappa.**


	3. Far From Home

**A/N: So, when I started ATGB I told myself no more crazy long chapters and here we are…13,000 words later. There's just SO much material to crunch through in these early chapters! Also, apologies for the delay! I am a) stupid busy at work; b) stupid busy at home; and c) spending as much of my free time outside as I can which leaves very little time for writing. But have no fear, I'm moving right along and will keep posting albeit maybe not regularly! **

**You all are seriously the absolute best! Thank you sososo much for all of the reviews, faves, and follows! Also, extra special love to Not Enough Answers who is an all-around wonderful person and stand-in beta for me so Stencil Your Heart can have a break from reading these beasts.**

**Chapter title is by Sam Tinnesz and no, it has nothing to do with Spiderman!**

**Disclaimer – I don't own **_**Marvel**_**. But if I did…oh, if I did…**

**Chapter Three – Far From Home**

"Alright, one final stretch and then I'll let you go, I promise."

Rhodey raised a disbelieving eyebrow at Dr. Meredith Palmer but followed her instruction, raising both of his arms overhead and catching the left wrist with his right hand. He leaned off to the side, tightening one side of his core to balance himself on the table while he stretched out his left side. Following her typical pattern, he inhaled deeply three times, each one followed by an audible exhale.

"Now switch sides," she instructed, changing her grip to mirror him.

Three more deep breaths and a deep right side stretch completed the circuit and he let his hands fall to the padded table, reaching for the microfiber towel a few inches away.

"You know, when Tony told me he hired a physical therapist, he didn't mention you were into torture."

Meredith threw her head back and laughed, sending her braids spilling behind her shoulders. She retrieved his water bottle from the counter and leaned against the table, bracing her hip against it. When she smiled at him, Rhodey's heart skipped a beat and he couldn't stop himself from admiring the shine of her smooth, dark skin.

"It's not torture, it's just intense therapy," she argued, crossing her arms over her chest. "If you're going to eventually get up in the frame Mr. Stark is designing, then you need to have as much core and back strength as possible to keep yourself balanced. That takes a lot of work."

Rhodey rolled his eyes while he drank from his water bottle. "I'm plenty strong."

Meredith raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow and pursed her full lips.

"Mhmmm."

Her playful doubt in him helped to improve his mood that might have been spoiled owing to her tough sessions. Physical therapy was an hour every other day that he dreaded and anticipated in equal parts, all owing to Meredith and her unrelenting programs that were part therapy, part strength training all in anticipation of Tony perfecting his prosthetic frame. The sessions would be pure torture if not for Meredith's ever-sunny disposition and beautiful smile that basically challeneged him to be in a bad mood even after she'd put him through his paces.

"Well, we're all works in progress, I guess," he offered, enjoying the way her smile broadened in response. "Are you staying for breakfast?"

Meredith checked her watch and scowled. "I wish I could but I've got to get back to the city to meet another client. But I think my schedule is clear on Thursday, I always like watching you fight with the espresso machine."

"Hey now," he pointed a playful warning finger at her. "That thing is a deathtrap."

"Yeah, yeah, you can fly a multi-million dollar Iron Man suit but you can't make a decent latte?"

"Oh, well if it's so easy, how about you school me on Thursday morning?"

The wicked gleam in Meredith's eye sent a spike into Rhodey's pulse. Why did she have to be so much fun?

"Alright, if you think you can stand the embarrassment."

Rhodey scoffed even as Meredith retrieved his wheelchair and brought it to the side of the table, hitting the foot pedal to lower it down. Bracing one hand on the table and the other on the far armrest, he lifted himself and slid into the seat.

"I'm gonna hold you to that," he huffed as he brought his legs over and settled his feet on the footrests, wiggling his back to get into a comfortable position.

Meredith beamed at him from where she plucked her light jacket off the wall, pulling it on over her pale blue tank top, covering her well-muscled arms. Once she had her bag slung over her shoulder she bade him goodbye, threading in a little more trash talk about his inability to use the espresso machine. Rhodey watched her leave the therapy room, unabashedly admiring the sway of her hips and her pleasing hourglass figure. He stayed in one place for far too long, musing over Meredith's smile and whether or not she had a boyfriend, considering if it was inappropriate to ask her out long after she disappeared.

Rhodey only came back to his senses when a sharp pain shot up from the depths of his lower back, causing him to wince and lean forward in an attempt to alleviate the pain. Everyone on his medical team assured him these pains were normal and would eventually subside as the nerves healed, but that was of little comfort to him in the meantime. But the pain was enough to jar him back to his senses and alerted him to his rumbling stomach, reminding him he hadn't had breakfast yet.

He rolled out of the therapy room and down the gleaming hallway towards the elevator. A couple of people passed by, greeting him as they went before returning to their screens, reports, or just going back to their own thoughts. Rhodey fought a frown as he reached the elevator and waited for it to arrive. The quiet and relative calm that settled over the buildings unnerved him. Normally the compound would be crawling with staffers, running to and fro, rushing to get to meetings, tests, missions preparations, and training. These days the compound was decidedly less busy. With the Accords now enacted, the active staff was cut down to essential personnel only and on-call staffers would only be brought in if the UN council decided to send the remaining Avengers on a mission.

Rhodey missed the hustle and bustle of the compound. He missed seeing familiar faces and even the friends he'd made over the past few years. There were staffers who had been with the Avengers since their inception who were now searching for new jobs or working to make ends meet between missions which seemed to be few and far between. The downsizing at the compound was one of the unforeseen consequences of signing the Accords, something Rhodey hadn't considered in the narrow window of time he had to review and sign.

And it wasn't just the absence of the staff he felt acutely. He considered the missing Avengers on the elevator ride up to the main common area. Somehow when he signed the Accords he never imagined that he'd end up losing Steve, Nat, Sam, and Wanda in the process. He'd spent years working with them, running missions, training for specific maneuvers, and learning each other's fighting styles, strengths, weaknesses, and quirks until he knew each of them almost as well as he knew himself. That was nothing to say of the time they all spent together outside of their day jobs. Rhodey found he didn't spend nearly as much time at the compound as he did before because there was no Wanda to teach him how to cook and no late night talks with Nat. Sam wouldn't be around to organize this year's fantasy football league or to pass along his latest playlists packed to the gills with deep cuts and old throwbacks that Rhodey could listen to on loop for weeks at a time. These days Steve's office remained empty and Rhodey hated that his friend wasn't around to talk politics or swap war stories. Although he felt guilty for thinking it, Rhodey couldn't help but believe that his new paralyzed state would be a lot easier to manage if all of his friends were there to help support him the way Tony had every step of the way.

The elevator doors opened onto the enormous common area. Instead of finding Wanda reading a book on one of the sofas or Sam turning on ESPN for background noise while he got breakfast going, Rhodey came out on a quiet space. He halfway expected to see Nat crest the stairs with Steve, showing him data on a tablet, the pair deep in conversation before she sashayed off to make coffee for everyone. Where was the head of the tactical team dropping by to make a bowl of cereal or even Vision phasing through the walls in order to observe the social goings on of the rest of the group? Rhodey hated how empty the common area was.

Except, as he drew closer to the kitchen he realized that the room wasn't empty after all.

Sadie Reid stood on the other side of the kitchen island, cradling a white mug between her thin hands. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other while she considered the espresso machine and all of its complicated workings. Pursing her lips, she started to reach out to turn the machine on and then thought better of it, turning away with a sigh.

"I'm not even going to bother," she muttered to herself and reached for the kettle on the stove instead.

The corners of Rhodey's mouth twitched. Perhaps she wasn't his first choice for companionship compared to the rest of his friends but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Company was company and he'd much rather talk to Sadie Reid than face the prospect of yet another silent morning.

"If it makes you feel better, it took me forever to learn how to use that damn thing."

Sadie, perhaps used to having an empty kitchen to herself, flinched so hard she nearly dropped the kettle. Her free hand flew to her chest, fingers pressing into her lightweight grey sweater.

"Lord above!" she exclaimed, slumping in relief upon recognizing him from their brief meeting five days earlier.

"Sorry," he raised his hands, "I didn't mean to scare you."

"It's alright, Colonel Rhodes. I wasn't expecting anyone else, that's all. I thought Tony mentioned you'd gone to Washington for meetings."

"I was, I got in late last night." He pointed to the espresso machine. "Are you sure you don't want coffee?"

Sadie waved him off with a tentative but friendly smile. "No, thank you. I'm fine with tea."

They fell into a strange, uneasy silence. Rhodey busied himself with retrieving the carafe of fresh-squeezed orange juice from the fridge and wondering if the nutritionist would have a coronary if he ate Frosted Flakes for breakfast instead of sticking to his usual diet. The shelves in the fridge were stocked with the usual assortment of eggs, milk, butter, and condiments but also meals prepared for him by the Avengers' nutritionist, the woman in charge of keeping Earth's protectors in fighting form by ensuring they all ate well. Rhodey noticed that on the shelf above his there were more containers with pre-made meals, stacked one on top of the other. Each container had a post-it note stuck to it with Sadie's name written on it along with the directive of whether the meal was breakfast, lunch, dinner or a snack. His eyebrows flew up in surprise; this was a new development and, from what he could tell, Sadie was supposed to be eating even more than he was.

"I know, it's hard to believe a woman my size can eat all that but you'd be surprised. Lately I've been hungry almost nonstop."

Rhodey swivelled around to face her, letting the fridge door fall shut behind him. Sadie set the kettle on the stove and fired up the gas burner. Now that she stood less than ten feet away, he could see that five days made a world of difference. She'd quite clearly put on a little bit of weight since their first and only meeting. Touches of color filtered through her skin and he thought she seemed stronger than before, standing up straight without having to lean against the counter.

"That's a good thing, isn't it? You look better."

"Thank you, Colonel. I feel much better."

Rhodey felt himself ease up, letting the tension in his body go in the face of Sadie's easy nature and warm voice. "Hardly anyone calls me Colonel," he remarked, not knowing where this sudden burst of friendliness came from. Perhaps he really was sick and tired of the empty compound. "Everyone calls me Rhodey."

Sadie nodded, lips drawing in a shallow smile. She seemed unsure of what to say to him in the face of his invitation to disregard formalities. For his part Rhodey found himself at a loss for words. Though he'd met Sadie before he left for Washington, they'd spoken for a grand total of a minute, just enough time to squeeze in an introduction and a brief handshake. What was he supposed to talk about with a woman who, though she looked no older than her late twenties, was technically older than his grandmother? Everything was brutally new for Sadie from the convoluted espresso machine to the clothes she wore and the modern architecture surrounding her. He felt like he was sitting before a minefield filled with revelations she might not be ready to hear or comments that might open old wounds. Rhodey thought she'd already endured enough misery being unceremoniously jerked into a new century with no memory as to how she got there only to learn that the people she'd want to see most were two of the world's most wanted criminals. The last thing he wanted to do was pile onto everything she was already supposed to be processing.

Worried that he was staring at her too long, he looked for anything else to focus his attention. Fortunately one of her prepared meals sat out on the counter, steam rising from a bowl next to the empty container. He gestured to the bowl.

"What's for breakfast?"

Sadie glanced back at the bowl, lips fighting a scowl. "It's oatmeal. Doctor Metz finally let me transition to solid food yesterday."

"Is oatmeal really that much of a step up?" Rhodey asked with mild disgust; he'd never been a fan.

"It's better than clear broth or the soup I was eating for breakfast. I don't care how many nutrients are packed in one bowl, nobody wants vegetable soup first thing in the morning."

Rhodey snorted, more surprised by the mild acid in her tone than anything else. "Yeah, you're not wrong. Looks like the doctor's plan is working, though."

Sadie tucked a stray lock of hair behind her hair in a demure manner that reminded him of movie stars in black and white films. He caught the subtle glance she afforded her body. "It's starting to."

The kettle went off. He watched her go about the business of fixing her tea, pouring the steaming water over the bag in her cup and absently dunking the bag to steep it. The force of her piercing gaze was a thousand miles away, stretching out into the invisible distance far beyond the walls. Rhodey wondered what she was thinking about as she raised the cup to her lips and blew on her tea to cool it down. Although she was certainly a woman out of time and far out of her element, Rhodey thought she didn't look entirely out of place in the modern kitchen. Perhaps it was the clothes she wore but Rhodey thought that wasn't it. For all the time he knew Steve he always seemed just half a step out of sync, like he never quite caught his footing in order to fit into the new world. But Sadie was still and calm, maybe even a touch resigned to her situation in a way that Steve never was.

"You seem to be taking it well."

Sadie blinked at him before tilting her head in curiosity. "Taking what well?"

"The transition, waking up thinking it's '49 only to realize it's-"

"A brand new millennium?" She suggested and he nodded. Sadie took a sip of her tea and regarded him over the rim of her mug. "Well, I'm here and I can't change that, how else am I supposed to behave?"

For just an instant Rhodey thought that Sadie might get along eerily well with Natasha who also had a freaky habit of always landing on her feet. The fleeting thought replaced itself with an old story, one that he and Sam liked to trot out to embarrass Steve.

"I dunno, when Steve woke up he ended up punching a couple of SHIELD operatives, basically broke a building, and ran barefoot into the middle of Times Square, so you could've gone that route."

Sadie choked on her sip of tea. Rhodey thought maybe she would recoil at the mention of Steve but instead she did something infinitely better, she rolled her eyes. "Why am I not surprised? I swear that man is the human equivalent of a bull in a China shop."

And just like that the ice between them shattered. He maneuvered around her to finish pouring his orange juice and get on with making the rest of his breakfast. "I bet you've got some good stories."

"A fair few, probably some he wouldn't have wanted his friends to know. How do you know Steve?"

"We worked together," Rhodey replied.

"On the-" her face scrunched up as she reached for the word. "Reven-no, that's not right, the Avengers?"

"Yeah, that's right." Rhodey started to say more about the Avengers but stopped himself. Discussing the splintered group, even on such a basic level picked away at the exposed nerves still healing from the fight in Germany and the subsequent fallout. Focusing on Steve, he pivoted to a different subject. "I've gotta ask, is it really true that he hotwired a jeep and drove it through the middle of a Nazi SS unit in order to draw their fire away from a bunch of civilians?"

Sadie nodded.

"If I recall correctly there were mortars, too. Like I said," she offered him another tentative but friendly smile. "Bull in a China shop."

A silent understanding passed between them, recognizing the absence of their mutual friend. Something resembling a wistful look touched Sadie's features, softening the hard angles, was it regret? Rhodey wondered what she had to regret when it came to Steve Rogers and he certainly had plenty of growing regrets of his own. She seemed to have forgotten all about her oatmeal while she stared back off into nothing, fingers moving to toy with the golden ring hanging from the long chain about her neck. A pang of sympathy needled Rhodey, adding to the already conflicted feelings he had regarding Sadie Reid and the precarious position she'd found herself since her discovery.

"Still," he said slowly, drawing her up to the surface from the well of her thoughts. "All of this has to be strange."

Sadie surveyed the shiny kitchen with its sleek granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, and digital everything. "It is," she agreed, doing her best to avoid frowning. "But it's not the first time I've been a stranger in a foreign world. The learning curve might be steep but I can adapt."

"Yeah," he patted the arms of his chair. "I know the feeling."

For the first time she looked at him and really saw his disability. "How recently?"

"Two months."

Sadie's eyebrows flew up. "And I thought my new life situation was jarring. How are you doing? With recovery and adjusting?"

Rhodey thought it strange but nice that she took an interest in him. There were times when he felt like those questions were the last on anyone's mind. Perhaps people worried about upsetting him or saying the wrong thing and that was why they shied away. Personally, Rhodey thought people didn't ask because they didn't know how to talk about his situation and applied too much of their own personal feelings to the matter rather than worry about his. He liked Sadie's straightforward approach. As an army nurse, she would have seen her fair share of wounds that led to paralysis or amputation with precious little time to dither with concerns about offending or trying to pick the right language. When she asked him she came from a clinical approach, eyeing his wheelchair with open curiosity.

"It's going okay. I've had a lot of support which is a lot more than most people get. That plus the doctors and a good physical therapist are making a huge difference."

"You're lucky," she remarked.

"I know," he said, staring down into his orange juice. He got the impression that they were talking about two different things at once and his heartstrings ratcheted another notch tighter.

She retrieved her oatmeal from the back counter along with a banana, mood oscillating again towards quiet. The movements of her hands were steady and decisive, peeling the banana and setting it on the cutting board she retrieved from the drawer in front of her. Even the way she drew a knife from the block and lined it up to slice the fruit was sharp and precise. Rhodey thought she was a strange combination of things but put together made up a pleasant woman who found herself in the worst possible situation. And if he could provide nothing else to Sadie Reid, at least he knew he could talk to her and maybe even alleviate some of her worries whenever he could.

"But hey, at least neither of us panicked and punched our way out of a building, so we've both got a leg up on Steve."

Whether it was the joke about Steve or about his legs that got Sadie, Rhodey never found out. The second she laughed she lost concentration of what she was doing. The knife in her hand slid forward and sideways, slicing deep across the index finger steadying the banana. Vivid crimson, blood gushed up hard and fast, smeared on the knife and staining the banana and the cutting board.

"Damnit," Sadie hissed.

The knife clattered to the board. Cupping her uninjured hand to catch any more drops of blood, she hurried over to the sink.

"Here, let me get a towel." He reached for the drawer, tugging it open and grabbing a clean white dish towel which he held out for her.

"Thank you. I can't believe I was so clumsy."

"Happens to the best of us."

Sadie ran her finger under the water and then moved to wipe any excess blood away.

"There's a first aid kit in the pantry."

Rhodey's hands never even reached the rails on his chair before Sadie uttered the last phrase he thought he'd ever hear from her.

"What the fuck?"

Silently she held her hand out for inspection, head volleying between the bloody cutting board and her index finger. Rhodey would never have believed it had he not seen with his own eyes. Blood that wanted to reach the surface of the cut never made it. Both of them watched transfixed as the cut sealed itself up, instantly drawing the skin back together until there, where the gash should have been, was nothing but perfectly smooth, unblemished skin, having healed in a matter of seconds.

The bottom of his stomach dropped out and all he could do was echo her sentiment.

"What the actual fuck was that?"

He raised his chin to find Sadie staring at him, slack-jawed and wide-eyed. Rhodey was certain that he mirrored her astonishment because what he saw was nothing short of incredible. For several long seconds they stared at each other in stunned silence, because trying to make sense of what they'd just seen escaped his comprehension and hers. If not for Tony's voice cutting through the haze, Rhodey wasn't sure how long they would have gaped at each other, two fish out of water.

"What?" Tony asked, waving his hands to get their attention. As one, Rhodey and Sadie turned to stare blankly at Tony. "What'd I miss?"

X X X

Sadie turned her hand over. Opening her fingers she could see the tendons pushing up beneath her skin, running down to converge at her wrist. Blue veins ran up the backside of her hand, little tributaries branching off the cephalic and basilic veins that wrapped around her forearms. Her eyebrows knitted together. Years of school and working under Doctor Holmes's tutelage taught her the names of all the veins, muscles, and tendons that made up her hand. She knew every bone and joint by heart and could describe the process by which the veins carried her used blood back to her heart in order to be reoxygenated. Sadie could pinpoint the places where muscle and tendon attached to bone and could even explain the way all of the parts of the hand worked together to craft fine motor movement, allowing her to perform delicate tasks like tweeze small pieces of shrapnel from a wound.

Sadie knew the human body. She knew how it worked and how it healed. But for the life of her she couldn't explain how her body, scarred and damaged as it was, could instantaneously heal a cut that should have required stitches and taken at least a week or two to completely heal.

Flexing and straightening her index finger, she couldn't even feel the place where she'd sliced herself. It was as if the event was a figment of her imagination, something she invented but for what reason she couldn't guess. If not for the blood staining the cutting board and Rhodey's witness Sadie might not have believed herself at all. Rotating her finger beneath the bright lights shining over her examination table, Sadie wanted to dismiss the whole event as fiction. After all, rationalizing a lie was far preferable to the truth facing her now.

"Sadie? Your arm."

"Yes," she squeezed her eyes shut to clear her mind. "Sorry."

Sadie rotated her arm, opening up the inside of her elbow to give Nurse Gonzales access to the large vein there. Gabriela tied a tourniquet around her arm a few inches above her elbow and swabbed the vein with an alcohol wipe.

"Make a fist."

Gabriela set to work while Sadie held her fingers closed in a fist, digging the ends of her fingernails into her flesh. Maybe a little flash of pain would wake her up though Sadie knew that was a fool's hope. She knew the difference between dreaming and waking and this was no dream, not even a nightmare.

To distract herself, she watched Gabriela work, tearing open a package to reveal a needle with a narrow plastic cup on the end. Sadie frowned. The few times she'd had blood drawn since being found she was either comatose or hooked up to an IV, allowing Gabriela easy access. This process of drawing blood was one she'd never seen before. For the moment her curiosity over the changes in medical technology won out over the shock of her newfound healing ability.

"How does the needle work? You don't draw the blood out with a syringe?"

Gabriela shook her head. She took the needle and inserted it so smoothly into her vein Sadie almost didn't feel the needle's bite. Holding up a test tube with a thick cap, Gabriela moved it into the plastic end of the needle. "You put the collection tube into the opening and push," she explained, demonstrating. As soon as the tube was lodged in place, blood started to flow inside. "With this method we can take multiple tubes using one needle."

"That's amazing," Sadie murmured and then flushed in embarrassment. "You probably think I'm crazy, being so interested in something so small."

A rare smile touched Gabriela's lips. "You've missed out on a lot. It stands to reason you'd be curious, especially since you used to be a nurse."

Sadie didn't miss Gabriela's choice of past tense. Of all the things that crossed her mind over the previous five days, she hadn't given thought to the passage of time rendering her nursing career dead on arrival. To her it seemed like only last week she'd been treating patients when in reality most of her patients were either in their eighties and nineties or already dead. The muscles in her abdomen clenched. So far she'd done an exemplary job of not thinking about that. Now was not the time to start dwelling on her catastrophic losses.

Gabriela finished one collection tube and reached for a second.

"I suppose that's just one more thing to add to the pile of things I've got to catch up on."

Both current and former nurse watched the second collection tube fill up. When it was full, Gabriela pressed a small square of gauze on top of the needle and slid it out. Sadie took over, pressing the gauze down on the spot and finding it strange to be on the other side of the needle. Gabriela prepared a bandaid to replace the gauze but when she pulled it back there was no need. Aside from a tiny smear of blood transferred from the gauze, Sadie's arm was clean and unblemished. There was no puncture mark or any indication whatsoever that she'd just had a large bore needle inserted into her arm.

Gabriela's shaky exhale reflected the way Sadie's insides quivered uncertainly. "Something tells me you'll be okay," the nurse said slowly, folding up the bandaid and setting it with the rest of the trash on her work traw. "And these new blood tests will tell Doctor Cho a lot more about your condition."

"How so?"

"Because she'll know what to look for now."

Sadie frowned. The science behind examining something as simple as a blood sample had to be complex these days, far more advanced than anything she ever studied. She brushed a thumb past the inside of her elbow; the flesh wasn't even tender from the needle pushing through.

"Will she be able to figure out how my body's doing that?"

"That's what I'm hoping."

Both Sadie and Gabriela lifted their heads to greet the arrival of a petite Asian woman wearing a blue smock over navy pants. She wore her sleek, raven's black hair in a neat bun at the nape of her neck and carried a tablet in one arm.

"It's nice to finally meet you, Miss Reid. I'm Doctor Helen Cho. My specialty is in genetics and Mr. Stark asked me to consult on your case."

Of course Tony was involved, Sadie thought, both grateful and annoyed. From the second Rhodey clued him in to what happened, Tony had been suspiciously calm and collected. He made a couple of phone calls, inspected her hand for himself along with the cutting board, asked a handful of questions she couldn't answer, and then finally got around to introducing his companion only after Pepper Potts interjected herself into the conversation. As a surprise (and Sadie suspected apology for subjecting her to the ever-increasingly grumpy Secretary Ross) he'd asked his longtime trusted business partner to help her begin understanding modern women's clothing, makeup, self-care, and to even out her haircut. Sadie wasn't sure how Pepper Potts came to be such a renaissance woman but she was an impressive person both in the accomplishments Tony rattled off and in her stature and beauty. The planned day of learning new cultural norms was derailed, however, in the face of this new development and it turned out that one of the people Tony called in was this geneticist, Doctor Cho.

Sadie's initial trepidation was tempered by her understanding that Tony, for all of his eccentricities, surrounded himself with the best people he could find. That was a Stark trait through and through, she thought, aided by his vast resources. But if Doctor Cho was game to take on the task of unravelling this enormous knot of string, then she would be happy to comply in any way possible.

"Do you think you can figure out what happened to me?"

"I think so," Doctor Cho explained, lifting one of the collection tubes to examine the label affixed to it. "These blood samples will help me understand any changes that were made to your genetic code during your missing time. An enhancement like yours will be difficult to test considering its nature."

"How so, Doctor?" Gabriela asked.

"Because in order to test it you would have to hurt me," Sadie surmised.

"Precisely," said Doctor Cho with a nod of her head.

Sadie appreciated the way that Gabriela moved closer to her, a small sign of protection of her patient and a feeling Sadie knew well. They'd spent enough time together in the last week to shed their initial distrust and apprehension towards each other to develop a bond of sorts. Gabriela didn't mind Sadie's constant stream of questions and didn't mind sharing information when others might not. Over time Sadie noticed there was a natural instinct in good nurses to protect their patients, even from doctors that might cause more harm than good and Gabriela was a nurse of the highest caliber.

But Sadie got the impression that Doctor Cho wasn't about to do more damage.

"Studying changes to your genetic code and comparing your blood to other samples we have in storage will help us understand the extent of your enhancements even if we can't completely test them. Though I'm already beginning to form a hypothesis regarding your newfound abilities." When neither Sadie nor Gabriela responded she kept going. "If you truly have enhanced healing abilities, then that would explain how you survived cryostasis and your turbulent thawing. Your power may have manifested internally, working to keep your vital organs functioning and as you've stabilized they started to work on restoring you to full health. That would explain why you've improved so rapidly in only a week. I'd like to take another series of full-body scans and run some additional tests to compare to the battery Doctor Lansing took when you arrived from Romania. That should also give us answers."

Of all of the information Sadie had been asked to absorb in the last week, this was perhaps the most mind-boggling. The last time she checked she was still a normal woman. She wasn't like Steve; she'd never undergone any testing or submitted to any type of experimentation. Those types of adventures might be for other people but weren't for her. Sadie liked being normal and she never envied Steve's abilities considering all of the trouble that befell him as a result. Every struggle she endured and battle she won had been through her utterly average hands. To hear Doctor Cho suggest that she had powers gutted her in a way she never expected because she knew that she would never submit to receiving them voluntarily.

A lightbulb went off in her mind. Voluntarily submitting to experimentation was one thing but there was more than one way to get a test subject. The thought led her down a dark path, tapping into a vein of memories she'd kept under lock and key for too many years. A whirl of images crossed her mind's eye, taking her from Azzano, to skimming medical charts, to Arnim Zola's Paris apartment and the shouting match she had with Bucky the night before the Nazis lost their grip on Paris. Sadie recalled reading a passage in Bucky's dossier that churned her stomach. There was a reason he survived the fall and it all went back to Azzano, the catalyst for everything that led her to this moment, both good and bad. Bucky never asked for his enhancement either and if HYDRA and Doctor Zola were willing to use Allied prisoners of war as lab rats, there was nothing stopping him from continuing that pattern after the war ended.

"HYDRA," she said in a low, hollow voice. Her eyes flicked to Doctor Cho's face. "HYDRA did this to me."

It wasn't a question; there wasn't anything in her statement to question. Sadie knew it in her bones as surely as she knew the sun rose in the East and set in the West. Doctor Cho's sudden stillness, fingers hovering over the tablet screen, coupled with her inability to meet Sadie's eye was all the confirmation she needed. Gabriela placed a warm hand on her forearm for comfort.

"The enhancements allowed you to survive when otherwise you wouldn't have. Our understanding of cryogenics is that freezing requires a subject in prime physical condition like Captain Rogers or Bucky Barnes. A person in your physical state shouldn't have survived the freezing process. Yet you did, and you're getting exponentially stronger every day."

"Am I like them?"

"We're not sure yet. But don't worry," she touched Sadie's shoulder. "We'll figure it out."

Though Sadie appreciated Doctor Cho's attempt at easing her worries, Sadie wasn't comforted in the least. This new development and clue to her missing time, combined with the signs of torture on her body, served to further cement Sadie's belief that maybe she didn't want to remember what HYDRA did with her after all. What other horrors was she subjected to? What else was injected into her veins? A shudder slipped down her spine that accompanied the phantom feeling of burning reaching out to the tips of her fingers and toes that tingled long afterwards.

"The good news is you don't seem to have suffered any negative side effects from healing so quickly. Before we take your full-body assessment, I want to take your vitals and ask you a few more questions about your medical history."

"Of course."

Doctor Cho unfurled the stethoscope hanging around her neck. As she instructed Sadie to take deep breaths, her attention wandered away from the straightforward examination towards a room adjacent to the examination room. Windows lined the upper half of the wall where Sadie could see into the other side. Three people congregated there, two she knew and one she'd only just met. She couldn't decide who looked more serious: Rhodey or Pepper Potts who paced back and forth, hands on her narrow hips. Tony stared out towards her but not at her, face set in a stony expression that didn't do him many favors. That morning and her friendly conversation with Rhodey felt so far away now, shrouded by the emergence of this brand new mystery, just another in a long line of questions that begged answers. Through the windows, Tony raked a hand through his already mussed hair and dropped his head, visibly agitated.

"I wonder what they're talking about," Gabriela muttered under her breath.

Sadie's heart sank a little deeper.

"I dunno about the specifics but I'll give you three guesses as to who."

X X X

"We have to tell the UN."

"Rhodey's right, Tony. I don't think you can keep this a secret anymore."

If looks could kill, Pepper was certain Tony could murder anyone in cold blood at the moment from his sheer annoyed glare alone. As a general rule he disliked when people disagreed with him but he really hated when she sided with Rhodey on anything, no matter how big or small. This matter, however, transcended most of their usual quibbles and was far more complicated than most. Tony's hard look eased up as he realized the harshness of his action but he replaced the look with an accusatory finger pointed in her direction.

"I thought I asked you to come help with assimilation?"

It was Pepper's turn to volley back a look that could melt the smugness clean off his face. He realized in an instant the mistake he made. Insinuating that she was only useful to bring a battery of designer clothing, makeup, and accessories wasn't just insulting, it was shockingly out of character for Tony. He wasn't one to downplay her importance or achievements or, even worse, relegate her to menial tasks. She took his request to heart because helping Sadie was about more than just clothing, but that didn't mean she was going to stand for him relegating her to the mere role of being his cosmo girl; she didn't care how strained relations were between them these days.

"Well, I'm here now and it's obvious that you need to hear as much reason as possible because you are in way over your head on this."

"I am not—" he stopped mid-sentence and blew out an exaggerated sigh, reminding Pepper of a petulant child being told he couldn't play with his favorite toy. Almost as soon as his frustration showed he reigned it back in, as manic and unpredictable as she'd ever seen him which was far more worrying than she wanted to admit. He wagged his finger between her and Rhodey who leaned back in his chair, not bothering to hide his irritation. "I think you two are panicking for no reason."

Rhodey dropped his head back with a frustrated groan.

"Didn't we talk about this a few days ago? She's enhanced, Tony, how much more do you need to know? The Accords are clear, in the event an enhanced—"

"See, I don't think it's that cut and dr—"

"The drafters didn't stutter, Tony!" Rhodey shouted over the interruption. "If an individual is discovered to be enhanced, he or she must be reported to the UN Accords Council!"

Tony threw his hands up, raising them in defense of Rhodey's regurgitation of the rules. For her part, Pepper was just impressed Rhodey managed to find something worth remembering in that brick of a resolution. "Okay, okay, I know that's what we're supposed to do but since when do we ever really do what we're supposed to?"

"Since we signed the Goddamned resolution!" Rhodey shouted.

Pepper pinched the bridge of her nose. She could already see the writing on the circular wall.

"And tell the Council what? That we _think_ maybe she's enhanced but we don't really know yet?"

"Yes we do! I saw it for myself. That cut healed in seconds like nothing ever happened. Nobody can heal that fast, not even Rogers."

Pepper bit the inside of her cheek. Any trace of good humor embedded in Tony's argument evaporated faster than a glass of water on the sun. These days mentioning Steve was a dangerous gamble as those conversations tended to needle the deep, still healing wounds Tony received only two months earlier. Though watching him now gave her hesitation. Maybe walking on eggshells was doing just as much damage as good because the Tony she was faced with wasn't the Tony she was accustomed to. She thought Happy had been indulging in overdramatics when he told her about Tony's bad mood swings and erratic decision-making but now that she could see for herself she regretted staying away for so long after their split.

Adding the recovery of Sadie Reid only seemed to further aggravate Tony's situation, pouring salt in his wounds because of her undeniably close ties to the two men on the planet he just wanted to escape. Pepper didn't necessarily blame Tony for wanting space from Steve and wanting to forget that Bucky Barnes existed at all, but as she looked past Tony through the windows to Sadie, she thought it was unfair to unload all of that emotional baggage on her. The layers of mystery and concern surrounding Sadie's recovery only seemed to be getting thicker and more tangled by the minute. Ever since Tony swallowed his pride and called her to the compound to help, Pepper had been trying to wrap her mind around not only Sadie herself, but the situation Secretary Ross put her in and Tony's shocking complicity. It wasn't like Tony to blithely follow any man and especially not Ross, whom Tony couldn't abide even in the best of times.

Pepper understood the root of Tony's emotional woes, but she never expected him to take his overreaction this far.

He looked even more harried than normal. Dark circles shadowed his eyes that seemed sunken in, signs that he wasn't sleeping well. Guilt crept in and gnawed at Pepper's stomach; if she was being really honest with herself she knew she was another contributing factor to his current chaotic state. Their greeting that morning reminded her of their early days when she strove to maintain professional boundaries and Tony, not one to be outdone, rose to the occasion with a dispassionate greeting that left her on the verge of tears. Maybe if they were able to work out their own troubles he might not have been so quick to jump the gun on so many things. Maybe things would be different with the Accords and maybe he'd be sleeping better next to her.

But that was the trouble with maybes: she could go over each and every maybe but none of them could change where they were now.

"Tony," she said softly, shifting gears in hopes that bringing down the angry tenor of the conversation would help. "The longer you and Secretary Ross wait to inform the UN the worse the blowback is going to be. Both of you championed the Accords and ignoring them could yield some unpleasant results."

"I get what you're saying, but we don't even know what we're dealing with. What if this is a fluke and we put the cart before the horse and create an international shitstorm for zero reason?"

Pepper frowned. "Do you really think this is a fluke?"

Tony's belligerent silence was answer enough.

"Okay, so we give Doctor Cho twenty-four hours," Rhodey suggested.

"Or we could bring someone else in."

"Who?"

Tony frowned but the answer came to him lightning-quick, snapping his fingers. "Vision. It's not like he's making headway looking for Rogers and the others anyway. We bring him in and he does his whole Vulcan mind-meld on Reid."

"Vision," Rhodey repeated in a deadpan voice. "You want to introduce a walking, talking, purple robot with a magic gem stuck in his forehead to a woman who barely knows how to work the microwave?"

Pepper pulled a face. "Rhodey's right. She's already overwhelmed and Vision is a big ask for most people."

Tony wiped his face with his hands; he wasn't used to running into roadblock after roadblock and his wafer-thin patience was on the verge of snapping. Pursing her lips, she debated whether she could withstand the awkwardness for the sake of a total stranger. Through the window, she watched Doctor Cho run a thermometer over Sadie's forehead while she continued to speak. The set of scrubs Sadie wore swallowed her and her back seemed bowed, like the weight of the world just wouldn't let off her shoulders. Mind made up, Pepper turned to Rhodey.

"Can you give us a minute?"

Rhodey didn't dare argue with her. He knew when all else failed, she was the one who usually came through. As soon as he was gone, she closed the gap and joined Tony at the windows.

"It's good to see you," he said after a moment. "I wasn't sure you'd come when I called."

"Of course I came. Just because we're not—that doesn't mean you're suddenly persona non grata." Pepper cast him a sideways glance. "I've been worried about you. Happy and Rhodey both say—"

"I'm fine."

That was a lie if he ever told one, but Pepper wasn't ready to start poking that particular bear. Instead she raised her chin and kept watching Sadie's examination.

"I know this isn't because you're suddenly on the Thaddeus Ross bandwagon, so what's really going on? Why don't you want to tell the UN?"

"Because," he blew out a long sigh. "As soon as we do someone's gonna leak it to the press and that's going to be the headline of every newspaper and website in the civilized world. And the second Rogers finds out Barnes's fiancée is back from the dead, you know he's going to come for her and make my life hell all over again."

Pepper mentally patted herself on the back. All these years later and she could still call his motivations a mile away in fog. "So, then he comes and we deal with it."

"It's not that simple."

"I really think it is," Pepper argued gently. "You're in the most secure facility in the world, and as much as I hate agreeing with Ross on anything I think he's right that Steve will think twice before trying to come back here. And I know I'm preaching to the choir here but you can't hide her forever, Tony. One way or another word is going to get out and I think Rhodey's right: the longer you wait to inform the UN the worse it's going to look for all involved."

"Yeah."

Tony stood eerily still, a sure sign that his brain was in overdrive, crunching through his options and the optics. Standing down, Pepper dared to touch his shoulder. "I'm going to go make a cup of coffee, you want one?"

"No."

Pepper dropped her hand to her side, doing her best to brush off her disappointment. She trailed towards the door, high heels sounding louder than usual in the ensuing silence. Just as she reached for the handle, Tony's voice caught her ears.

"Thanks," he said, swivelling to meet her eye. "For coming up and helping out."

She hated how sad her smile felt. "Anytime."

X X X

_A wispy breeze slipped through the air, setting the tall grass waving on either side of Sadie. Where she stood, she could see along the endless field, stretching out to meet the horizon. Brushstrokes of orange, yellow, pink, purple, and blue combined to paint a stunning sunset that arched over her head and led towards the coming velvety night sky. Already stars appeared, winking jewels encrusted in constellations. Sadie inhaled and caught the sweet scent wafting from the grass, carried on the breeze that ruffled her loose curls and the skirt of her pale pink dress. Reaching out, she brushed her fingers along the tips of the grass that came close to her waist. The evening unfurled around her like something out of a storybook, beautiful and pure._

_ Sadie's eyes fluttered shut upon feeling a warm touch at her waist, sliding over the thick silk. Two strong arms wrapped around her waist, bringing her against a firm chest. Lips buried themselves in her hair to whisper along the shell of her ear, prompting a content smile from her._

_ "That sunset's got nothing on you."_

_ "Haven't we been through this before? Flattery will get you nowhere, buck sergeant."_

_ Bucky chuckled and dipped his head to press a light kiss to the underside of her ear. "You're always saying that, but I'm not sure I believe you."_

_ Cool lips continued to skim along her neck, featherlight and nearly overwhelming Sadie's ticklish nerves. In his strong hold she felt comfortable, able to ease the tension in her body and sink into him, a bundle of loose muscles and joints. He swayed their joined bodies back and forth to follow the waving grass. Maybe Bucky's humble and wholly-biased opinion favored her over the sunset, but Sadie was enthralled by it. She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen a sunset and enjoyed the vivid ruby red band of light that divided the horizon from the sky. If she concentrated hard enough she felt the last of the sun's rays dance across her cheeks. _

_ "Bucky." His name dropped off her lips on a breathy exhale in response to his unrelenting kisses. Each one triggered new nerves that tingled in response like dominoes tipping one right after the other. Sadie herself felt like a domino about to fall at the slightest provocation and only his strong arms around her waist kept her from relying on her wobbly knees. _

_ "I miss you." She shivered in response to the rush of his breath over her neck, raising goosebumps on her sensitive skin. "Why are you so far away?"_

_ "I'm right here," she murmured, head dropping on his shoulder. "I've been here the whole time."_

_ "So far away," his lips grazed her shoulder before he loosened his hold to turn her around. _

_ Sadie rose up to the tips of her toes to meet him in a firm kiss. His fingers tangled in her hair, twisting around the curls and at the same time he spanned a hand at her lower back, bringing her body flush to his and caging her there. Bucky's kiss was warm and familiar, a dance of slow, measured and passionate movements combined with the unabashed way his tongue moved out to meet hers and the sharpness of whiskey she thought she tasted there. They molded to one another, chins touching and bodies rolling with the natural flow of the passion pouring out between them. When she moved her head he followed and he crushed her tighter to him when she dragged her fingernails down his back. _

_ And then she was falling backwards, coming to land in the soft grass and Bucky moving over her. The calluses on his hand were rough in the best way imaginable as he pushed higher and higher up her thigh, displacing her skirt. Blades of grass tickled the back of her legs and it rose up all around them, shielding them from any prying eyes, a cocoon away from everything. Sadie's heart hammered pleasantly against her breastbone, spiking every time Bucky parted from her lips only to take her back under again. Time slipped by in tiny increments and giant leaps, punctuated by her wandering hands, uprooting his shirt from his trousers, his knees coming part and rest between her legs, and his weight settling down over her. Every rushed breath contained the hint of a laugh and a dozen unspoken promises embedded within that they wouldn't take this precious time for granted. Wherever they were, wherever they'd been, this moment was sacred and worth drawing out as long as possible. _

_ Bucky grasped her hips and pulled her up, rolling over to bring him on top of her. She came down on his hips, releasing a soft moan when he bucked up against her._

_ "Sade," he murmured, drawing his fingers up the back of her neck and into her hair, holding her down against him. _

_ Oh how Sadie wanted him, right there in that field, out in the open. The band of tension holding them together tightened a notch when they moved together again and she ripped her mouth from his, moving to reach behind her to unzip her dress but stopped when Bucky's hand slipped away from her neck, fingers dragging down her chest to fall limp at his side. Looking down, she let out a wilted scream. Blood stained the front of her dress. She felt it warm and sticky in the curls at the nape of her neck transferred from Bucky's hand, shiny and thick with it. _

_ "Bucky what's—BUCKY!"_

_ Sadie fell backwards off of him, scrambling back to her knees at his side. Hooded blue eyes found her, mouth panting in shallow breaths though how he was breathing at all made no sense. Her mouth hung open in abject horror, so strong that it suppressed any sound she wanted to make whether to scream or call for help. Blood seeped through the edges of his white shirt, ripped open along with his whole chest. Broken ribs stuck out, a shattered cage that revealed his heart in the center, the strong muscles pumping wildly, visible to her naked eye. _

_ "Where were you?" He choked on the blood that spurted past his lips, discoloring his teeth and dripping from the corners of his mouth. _

_ "I'm here," she called out to him, reaching for his hands. "Bucky, I'm here!"_

_ Waves lapped at her legs and when she dared to tear her eyes from his face she cried out. Red waves lapped at their bodies. Rivulets of water defied gravity and crept up her skirt, bleeding out in patches along the silk, growing and stretching out until stains merged and her whole dress was blood red and growing darker and darker until inky blackness reached up for her. Bucky wheezed and choked on a cough and his hand slipped from hers. _

_ Sadie was falling again, drifting further from Bucky into the deep ocean. She tried to scream but the water rushed her throat, dragging her down deeper and deeper until—_

Sadie came to with a loud gasp, sitting up so fast she nearly upended herself right off her bed. The book previously resting on her chest went flying and snapped shut when it came to rest on her covers, place in it now lost. Cold sweat beaded at her forehead and the back of her neck, causing her hair to stick to her skin. Anxiety thrummed in her veins, whooshing back and forth at a maddening pace that at first didn't want to dissipate. Sadie was a prisoner to her own body's automatic response to fear until slowly her blind terror receded and she could think clearly again.

A blurry haze encroached at the corners of her vision, but she recognized one thing straight away. She'd drifted off somewhere in the middle of her latest history book because her bedside lamp was still lit and casting a wide beam of low light towards the darkness on the other side of her bedroom. Vaguely she recalled struggling to get through a passage on the Civil Rights movement, only to get tangled up in the author's convoluted prose. Though she didn't recall drifting off, Sadie must have sometime during her fourth or fifth attempt at reading the same paragraph. Was it really so hard to write a straightforward account of restaurant sit-ins? On its face, Sadie found the topic fascinating but this particular book was giving her fits and had since she started reading it.

The book now laid closer to the foot of her bed face down on her comforter. Sadie gave it only a second's thought as her body finally unclenched and she relaxed, scooting back to rest against her headboard. Dropping her head against the wall, she scrunched up her face so she could let each muscle release and relax when she exhaled slowly. Sadie performed the exercise two more times until the final wisps of terror escaped with her breath. What was left, however, wasn't much better than the fear she associated with her nightmare, not the first she'd had since waking up.

Where she sat on her bed, Sadie could see the difference six days made. The history books Tony provided were split into two stacks, one of the books she'd already read and the dwindling stack she'd yet to conquer. A handful of neatly organized personal items stood on her dresser, including the paddle hairbrush, moisturizer, hairpins, and elastic bands she was still trying to get the hang of using. A brand new makeup bag sat on her dresser, containing a few specially selected items that Pepper Potts promised accentuated her natural features. The drawers, though still sparsely populated, held the clothing that appeared on a near-daily basis, all constructed of robust comfortable fabric that stretched when she moved and helped smooth her sharp angles. The closet door stood partially open and Sadie could see the clothing that Pepper selected for her, a grouping of conservative but pretty dresses that she promised fit the modern style and were just a fraction too big for now but she would fill them out in time. Tony's assistant and friend, Happy Hogan, provided her with a set of pens and a few stacks of what he called 'Post-its,' and though Sadie still worried that she was ruining the pages of her books by using the notes, she found them incredibly useful to note her questions and mark passages she wanted to re-read.

Perhaps most comforting was her necklace, now safely looped back around her neck where it belonged after asking Secretary Ross no less than six times for him to return what rightfully belonged to her. While she poured through tome after tome on the steady march of American history, Sadie returned to the familiar habit of toying with her rings, a ritual unchanged by the passage of time and her unceremonious return to it. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the glimmer of silver where she'd placed Bucky's dog tags on her nightstand next to the alarm clock.

Sadie scowled when she realized the time, almost three in the morning. Now that she was awake she likely wouldn't be going back to sleep if the past few nights were any indication. She'd noticed that she had a hard time falling and staying asleep these days. During the restless hours where she lay in the dark fruitlessly willing herself to sleep she took Bucky's tags and rubbed her thumb over the raised lettering, wondering how much easier she might fall asleep if Bucky was actually next to her. She often considered whether he ever thought about her, wherever he was now. Gabriela chalked Sadie's insomnia up to all of the years she spent in cryo and now being in a state of hypervigilance. She pointed out that Steve's medical charts noted the same bouts of insomnia in the days and weeks after he thawed out. Sadie took only a small dose of comfort knowing that her symptoms mirrored Steve's; she would feel infinitely better if there was a way to see her friend, though she didn't think that was going to happen any time soon considering Steve's newfound and ridiculous status as a criminal.

"Not that he'd want to see me anyway," she reminded herself, drawing back to the last time they saw each other.

Still, there wasn't much she wouldn't give to see Steve Rogers just to hear from his own lips confirmation of everything she'd been told about her disappearance, about this brand new world, and-she sucked in a tight breath-about Bucky.

Sadie's morbid curiosity got the better of her, and the moment Tony left her to her own devices she took up the stack of files. For hours she poured through the records. Line after line of text came together to paint a vivid picture of Bucky and Steve's lives long after the war ended. Each date became a point on the crude mental timeline she'd constructed and although the years still barred belief, Sadie thought she'd managed to piece together some semblance of a story. Every paragraph, sentence, word, and period felt sadder than the last, further confirming everything Secretary Ross told her during their meetings. He'd taken her last hope and dashed it across the rocks with no ceremony or remorse.

In little moments of downtime, Sadie questioned why Ross thought it wise to bombard her with the gory details of Bucky's history so soon after she emerged from the ice. Perhaps the Secretary thought she might be similarly disgusted by Bucky's actions, but Sadie suspected he simply didn't care that the criminal he referenced was once her fiancé. Regardless of his intentions, Ross missed the mark with his coldly calculated actions. The more she learned about Bucky's horrific experiences, the worse her heart ached for him. What wouldn't she give to draw him into her arms or press her hand to his chest just to feel his heart beating?

Sadie dragged her thumb over her engagement ring, parsing out the three stones. It was a strange thing to imagine that Bucky was out there somewhere. With so many people intent on finding him, she couldn't imagine where he'd gone to hide, but Sadie took great relief in knowing that wherever he was, Bucky was likely with Steve. If there was one person aside from her that would move heaven and earth to protect Bucky, then it was Steve Rogers. Bucky might not have been in perfect hands, but he was certainly in good hands, and that was all she could ask for.

She continued to toy with the ring and considered everything that Ross deigned to reveal to her about Bucky's condition. Certain things were easier to believe than others. By now she'd credited Arnim Zola's experiments at Azzano for how Bucky managed to survive the fall. Although she wasn't surprised in the least to discover that he lost his left arm as a result she still lost her breath thinking about the pain he endured. But it wasn't Bucky surviving or losing his arm or even the miracle of a prosthetic he received from HYDRA that she found hard to swallow. No, the bitterest pill came in the form of Bucky's alleged brainwashing and the decades he spent alternating between cryogenic sleep and carrying out assassinations as HYDRA's most valuable weapon. The concept alone upended Sadie's whole world. It was simply impossible to imagine Bucky, _her_ Bucky, as anything other than the confident, kind, charming, brilliant man she fell in love with. How could anyone simply open his mind up and scoop out all of the best things about him, leaving nothing but the cold, shrewd soldier behind?

Sadie shivered. Though she didn't know why, but there was something deeply unsettling about even trying to imagine Bucky that way. An irrational fear prickled the lining of her stomach, raising her defenses as though she would look into the shadows in her room only to discover a pair of dead blue eyes staring back at her.

"Don't be ridiculous," she told herself.

And yet, despite her insistence that she was being silly, Sadie was already off her bed and halfway to the door.

Ambient lights along the baseboards lit up the hallway as she walked past. The automated lights scared the daylights out of her the first time she encountered them, but now Sadie hardly noticed them as she padded along, her bare feet making almost no sound on the cool floor. As she ambled down the hallway she considered where she might go, drawing the ends of her open cardigan tighter around her body.

At night the main part of the compound emptied out save the few permanent residents, leaving it free for Sadie's exploring. The first three nights in her new room she didn't leave, afraid of straying where she shouldn't. After that she ventured out only to the kitchen to make tea in hopes that it would help put her back to sleep. That night, however, she didn't want tea and she didn't want to lay back down, too keyed up from the past two days and the jittery feeling rattling her insides. So instead of going to the kitchen she wandered down to the ground floor and wove her way up, exploring empty hallways and examining the sparse decorations until she ended up in another residential hallway. Sadie stopped at the first door to read the small silver plaque next to it.

"Wanda Maximoff," she murmured under her breath.

More names were attached to the rooms as she passed. Sadie thought she'd seen the names Natasha Romanoff, Sam Wilson, Clint Barton, and Bruce Banner in some of Steve and Bucky's lengthy dossiers but she couldn't put faces to names. She came to the end of the hall where it split open into a staircase on one side and on the other.

"Steve," she whispered, ghosting her fingers over his name.

Sadie tried the door and to her relief it opened, swinging silently inward. She fumbled for the light when she entered, relieved that the slide was similar to hers, allowing her to bring the lights to a comfortable glow. A queen-sized bed was the central feature, bearing a handsome navy bedspread and flanked by floor-to-ceiling windows. Handsome dark wood complemented the soothing pale grey walls, bearing little touches and hints of Steve's personality throughout. What astounded Sadie most was the clash of modern and old-fashioned tastes. Only two days earlier she'd learned what a television was and she trailed her fingers along the top of Steve's, hanging from the wall above a dresser bearing a few personal items that he'd left behind - a watch, cufflinks, some spare change, and a tin of mints. A desk took up one corner. Sadie opened the sketchpad and flipped through it, smiling at the beautiful drawings of the grounds, the Hudson River, cities he'd visited, and faces of people she'd never met before. Framed maps and pictures of the New York of his childhood hung on the wall throughout the room, including a beautiful print of the Brooklyn Bridge and another of Ellis Island. There were a handful of other framed pictures, all of them in color and all of them featuring Steve with people she'd never met save Tony and Rhodey.

Sadie thought it was strange and at the same time familiar, standing in Steve's bedroom. For the entire time she knew him, Sadie never imagined Steve in an apartment or a house. Things like rent, dusting furniture or maintaining a yard seemed below Steve and his missions, driven by this all-encompassing focus on eradicating HYDRA from the face of the earth. Thinking of Steve living anything close to a domestic life was like trying to imagine him living a modern life with an entirely new family he'd cobbled together; she just wouldn't believe it until she saw it all for herself.

She felt sad, staring at all of Steve's possessions all contained within the room. Did he miss any of it when he walked away? She wondered if he would have wanted the photographs or any of the books crammed into his bookshelf next to a deep leather armchair. How many had he bought with good intentions but never once opened? Curious, Sadie ambled closer to the bookshelf to get a better look at the titles. A smile tugged at her lips and she brushed her fingers down the spine of Dorian Grey, nestled right next to _Crime and Punishment_. There were more titles she recognized and so many she didn't. She mumbled them to herself, wondering if anyone would mind if she borrowed _Catch-22_, _To Kill a Mockingbird_, or _Harry Potter_. She went to the next shelf and paused.

"Oh Steve, you sentimental fool," she whispered, even as she smiled and took the picture frame from the shelf. Her legs carried her to the bed where she sank down to inspect the picture, the very same photograph from New Year's Eve 1944 that she'd carried. It was, after all, to her knowledge, the only picture taken of Steve, Bucky, and her together.

For her part, Sadie was glad he'd chosen this particular picture of them dressed up and looking shinier than they usually did. There were enough pictures of her in the field, but not nearly enough that showed her polished up and in a civilian dress, wearing a smile to show off just how happy she'd been during the war, all things considered. Even now she could hear the band wailing a kitschy jazz tune from the stage. She could taste the bubbles from her champagne and the whiskey that lingered on Bucky's lips late into the night. Dugan stood behind the camera, making a rude hand gesture that caused Steve to tell him off while Sadie and Bucky burst into laughter. Second later Bucky would whisk her off to dance while Steve retreated to drink with the boys, taking advantage of one of the few nights off he ever took.

Did he look the same? Sadie imagined him walking around in his uniform but that was all wrong. The war was over and so the time for uniforms and medals and saluting went with it. Maybe he'd grown his hair out a bit or tried out the newer styles for men. Perhaps he finally learned how to dance and even found time to go out on a date or two since waking up. She hoped so. For her own selfish reasons Sadie had to hope that Steve learned to build a life out of his displacement.

"Maybe I will too," she murmured, tracing her finger over her face.

The smiling Sadie in black and white felt like a lifetime ago and she remembered sadly that it was. She hadn't even been that woman when she went home.

"I was wondering if you'd eventually make it down here."

Sadie's head snapped up, heart leaping into her throat only to settle. Rhodey maneuvered his chair into the room.

"I haven't been sleeping well," she explained.

"Yeah, that makes two of us."

He held his hand out for the picture.

"This is a nice picture of you. I've seen it before but I didn't really pay attention to you. Guess I should have."

"I'm surprised it's in here at all, to be honest." Sadie debated whether she could trust this man enough to say much more. Rhodey seemed nice enough in their limited interaction but nice only went so far. What if she said something that proved useful? What if he was reporting everything back to Ross?

As if he could read her mind, Rhodey's shoulder's rose in a half-laugh. "It's okay to talk, you know. You'll figure out that nobody here is a big fan of the Secretary. Honestly, I'm starting to think that maybe Steve's better out there doing what he does best."

Sadie's brows rose. "Still fighting the good fight?"

"Doing what some of us didn't have the courage to do."

The way he spoke betrayed something more about him than Sadie expected. Regret touched his tone, a morose note in his otherwise pleasant voice. Sadie thought about the empty palace surrounding them and Rhodey alone in it before she came along. Swallowing, she tried to keep her face from showing too much of her sympathy.

"We didn't part well either," she offered, a silent offer of her understanding. "After Bucky died, we were both drowning in our private grief. I took a transfer to the Pacific and he accused me of cutting and running when things were at the toughest. We got into a fight that ended with," she exhaled slowly. "I said something that I have regretted ever since."

Rhodey chuckled. "It seems like all of Steve's pressure points relate to Barnes."

"Is that why he fell out with you and Tony?"

"Tony, yeah. But me?" Rhodey shrugged. "I know Barnes has done some bad things and he's hurt some people I care about, but it wasn't like that for me. We just saw things differently and let that disagreement go too far."

"The Accords," Sadie said, digging up the phrase from her reading and limited understanding of the current world.

"You're a fast learner," Rhodey remarked and then sighed. "It's more complicated than just that but yeah, at the core it was because I signed and the others didn't. But when I signed I didn't think it'd go this way—I didn't think I'd end up losing almost all of my friends." He glanced around Steve's empty room.

"Sometimes we don't know what we have until it's taken away."

Rhodey caught her fiddling with the engagement ring. "Do you miss him? Barnes?"

She met his eye with a sad smile. "All the time. And I miss Steve too, though I doubt the feeling's all that mutual."

"Bullshit," Rhodey countered. "That's the funny thing about Steve, he doesn't hold grudges. I guarantee you whatever you two said to each other over seventy years ago," he raised his eyebrows and placed special emphasis on the elapsed time, eliciting a light laugh from her, "is water under the bridge. Hell, why do you think everyone's been so hush-hush about you? Ross and Tony think once Rogers finds out you're still alive, he'll come for you."

The thought both terrified and exhilarated her. "He wouldn't dare."

"Sadie, this is the same man who rescued hundreds of Allied prisoners just to save Barnes at Azzano. We both know he absolutely would."

"Oh, how could I forget that?" She groaned, wiping her face with his hands. "I mean, I was there for crying out loud. That idiot would probably do it just for the challenge."

"He'd do it for you," Rhodey gently corrected her and pressed the picture back into her hands.

Sadie regarded her shining face and Steve's brotherly arm around her shoulders. So many things had happened to her in a week, all strange and alarming but none more so than the mysterious powers Doctor Cho was still trying to unravel and understand. There was nothing she wouldn't give just to sit down with Steve and talk to him about everything, about his experiences, and her fears. If anyone could make her feel better on this entire planet, Bucky Barnes included, it was Steve Rogers.

"Still, I'd give just about anything to see him again or just talk to him. Maybe then all of this would feel more real and he could help me make heads or tails about my apparent enhancements—Lord, I hate that word."

Though he didn't say anything in response, Sadie thought Rhodey was on the verge of agreeing with her. His lips pursed in a resigned frown as though understanding that he occupied a tenuous middle ground always on the knife's edge of making a mistake with anything he said or did. But she didn't miss the way he looked around Steve's empty room and the remorse that flashed in his deep brown eyes, deepening the lines at the corners of his mouth and suddenly aging him several years. At the armrest of his wheelchair his hand clenched into a fist. She imagined him wrestling down the demons of his regret and anger, forcing himself to contend with the decisions he made and the consequences involved. After all, there was nothing Rhodey could do that would help her now. He very well couldn't call Steve up on the phone and arrange a meeting. Sadie recognized now that they were in eerily similar positions - stuck with nowhere to go, hands tied by too many rules and people that would stop them.

Reaching out, she placed a tentative hand on his forearm. Rhodey's hand relaxed. "You don't need to worry about me, Rhodey. Whatever happens I'll figure out a way to muddle through, I always do." She returned the picture to its place on the bookshelf and retreated for the door. "I'm going to try and get a little more sleep. I've got another meeting with Secretary Ross tomorrow and I think it'll go better if I'm well rested. Goodnight."

"Yeah," he offered a weak smile. "Night."

Sadie returned to her room, having no idea that Rhodey stayed in Steve's room for a while longer, weighing his options. As she managed to drift off she missed his great internal debate and the conclusion he finally reached, mind made up. Rhodey rolled out of Steve's room to go wake up Happy, determined to make the right call, even if nobody else would.

**A/N: I promise that Steve and Bucky make their appearances next chapter! As I mentioned previously, this is going to be a long story and there are a ton of pieces on the board I've got to move early on. **

**Anyway, loved it? Liked it? Think Rhodey is the only Avenger with half a functioning braincell? I'd love to know your thoughts! – Much love, Kappa.**


	4. Stardust

**A/N: No. I'm not dead. The reason why I haven't updated sooner boils down to a combination of factors, the most important of which is that my caseload at work changed and I've been a lot of working 50+ hour weeks. And then, when I thought was going to get a break surprise! I ended up needing surgery. The bottom line is that between a husband, two dogs, friends/family obligations, working full time, working out six days a week, and pursuing other hobbies I've just been flat out busy. I know that can be frustrating for some of you and I'm sorry. If you ever want to know why it's been a hot minute since I've posted please, please, please sign in and PM me. I truly don't mind answering messages and as much as I wish I could promise things are going to calm down in my life I just can't. **

**In the meantime **_**ho-ly shit**_** y'all are amazing. Thank you a million times over for all of the follows, favorites, and especially the reviews! Extra thanks to the fantastic Not Enough Answers for her excellent beta work! **

**Chapter title is by the incomparable Nat King Cole.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own everything recognize as me not owning. **

**Chapter Four - Stardust**

"Explain it to me again."

"The theory is simple enough, even if the process is not. I have developed an algorithm capable of rooting out HYDRA's trigger words and wiping them from Sergeant Barnes's mind while keeping the spirit and context of the associated memories intact. In order to perfect the algorithm, I am going to make a one-to-one copy of his brain to run simulations of the procedure."

"How many simulations are you going to run?"

"As many as it takes until the algorithm can successfully wipe the trigger words without disturbing the underlying memories."

Steve Rogers uncrossed his arms and shoved his hands in his pockets. Next to him, Shuri continued to tap away on her tablet, glancing up every now through the windows to monitor her patient's progress. According to Shuri, the thawing process was made easier by monitoring Bucky's physical metrics and adjusting the room settings in response, altering the temperature, light, airflow, and even the settings on the bed he lay on. Steve didn't know if Shuri was right and changing the color of the lights from soft blue to a cool violet made any difference whatsoever, but he was willing to go with it just in case Bucky had an easier time waking up. For the moment, Bucky lay statue still, arm resting at his side and chest rising and falling in even intervals.

His brows knitted together as he tried to unravel Shuri's simple explanation to root out the knots within. "So after you take out the trigger words he'll be fine?"

"I would not go that far. No one will be able to control Sergeant Barnes using the trigger words, but his memories from the past seven decades will remain. He will need extensive psychological rehabilitation."

"Can you wipe those memories?"

Shuri shifted her weight and in the reflection of the glass he caught her frown.

"I could," she said cagily, "but I don't recommend it. Leaving gaps in Sergeant Barnes's memory could cause more damage than good."

"I agree with you," he reassured her. "I was just curious. How long will it take?"

Shuri waved a dismissive hand. "I won't know until I complete the copy of his brain and begin running the simulations. The outcome of the first test will give me a better idea of how long it will take to perfect the procedure. Once that's finished, it's only a matter of placing Sergeant Barnes into an induced coma and performing the final run. How long that takes depends entirely on how deeply intertwined the trigger words are with the associated memories."

"But he won't be awake for any of it."

"No," she replied and tapped her screen again. Through the window Steve thought he saw Bucky's fingers twitch, the first signs that he was beginning to emerge from cryosleep. "Keeping him as emotionally and mentally stable as possible will be important for the algorithm to do its job without causing any extraneous damage."

Without the benefit of Shuri's genius, Steve still thought that was a good idea. The notion of anyone rooting around in his brain for any reason at all gave him the creeps; he couldn't imagine being awake while it happened. Bucky's fingers definitely twitched again and Steve released a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. Steve rubbed the back of his neck, unsure how to express his gratitude or even his disbelief that all along the secret to ridding Bucky of this unwanted companion rest within the mind of a sixteen year old Wakandan princess. If someone told him this time two months ago that this was how finding Bucky was going to turn out, he might have laughed himself hoarse.

The impossibly modern lab surrounding him said otherwise. Steve thought he hit the limit of modern technology and innovation with all of Tony Stark's creations, but now that he'd spent time with Shuri, there was no questioning that her brilliance exceeded even Tony's and Bruce's. She moved through her labs with the sort of unpracticed ease that only came with supreme confidence in her abilities and moreover the knowledge that she belonged exactly where she was. Steve didn't know many adults with that sort of self-assurance, much less a teenaged girl who could have easily spent her time spending time with her friends and indulging in all of the reckless delights of youth. And yet here she was, on the precipice of helping rid Bucky of at least a handful of his demons.

There wasn't anything that Steve could say or do to properly express the depth of his gratitude, not only to Shuri, but to T'Challa for making it happen. Nor did he imagine either of them would accept anything in return. Their sole focus seemed to be on bringing peace to the restless and Steve suspected that Shuri saw the entire exercise as an exciting technological leap forward. Bucky was both a patient and a test subject, albeit a subject in the most hospitable place he could imagine. At the very least he was far away from Secretary Ross's reach and safe from the world's prying eyes. And if Bucky had finally hit a run of good luck, then perhaps he would find a road to some version of healing and peace here in Wakanda under Shuri's watchful eye.

Steve's lips tugged towards a frown. He wanted to flick the thought out of the forefront of his mind but he couldn't help but wonder, what if Bucky's streak of bad luck continued?

"What happens if it doesn't work?"

"Oh, it will work," Shuri's assured tone bordered on overconfidence, a flash of her youth working its way through her professional exterior. Even the smirk on her face told Steve that she, like Tony, never walked into her projects considering failure.

"But if it doesn't?" Steve pressed.

The smirk slipped off Shuri's face and she gave him a sidelong glance, unamused that he'd deigned to question her genius plan. "In that extremely unlikely event during the process Sergeant Barnes could experience seizures, the algorithm might end up removing the associated memories, possibly even other memories he's accumulated from his past, possibly he could suffer neurological damage but none of that will happen."

"But there's always a risk."

Shuri rolled her eyes as she turned away from the windows and set her tablet aside, apparently satisfied with Bucky's room conditions. "There is always a risk but I am confident in the planned procedure and I will not attempt it on Sergeant Barnes until the simulation runs are perfect." She touched Steve's elbow, a gentle urge for him to tear his gaze away from Bucky to focus directly on her instead. "Captain Rogers, I am confident in this program and in my abilities. I ask that you try to be too."

It took all of Steve's considerable willpower to stop himself from pointing out that he was taking orders from a sixteen year old he'd only met two weeks earlier. Instead he summoned up a genial sort of smile and looked away, towards the enormous screens taking up this particular corner of her lab, each one monitoring something about Bucky, his condition, the thawing process, and more numbers that Steve couldn't hope to understand even if he had someone explain it all to him.

"This is just...it's a lot to take in."

"I understand," Shuri assured him, again showing that easy confidence she wielded like a shield against any would-be detractors. "But rest assured, Sergeant Barnes is in good hands."

A low groan threaded through the speakers from one room to the other. Together, Shuri and Steve's attention snapped to the windows just in time to see Bucky bend one of his knees and bring his hand to wipe across his face. Bucky raised his head to peer around the room and then dropped back down onto his pillow, exhaling in relief. He let his head loll to the side where he could see through to Steve and Shuri. Steve further relaxed when the corner of Bucky's mouth lifted in a smirk.

"Now I know how Snow White felt," he joked.

Steve laughed, more for the relief of hearing Bucky crack a joke than anything else. "Don't kid yourself, Buck. You're not nearly as good-looking as Snow White."

Bucky grinned, turning his face back up towards the ceiling. "Well, I guess we all can't be perfect."

Shuri led the way to the door and Steve followed her into Bucky's recovery room. Grinning ear to ear, he approached the table and held out a hand for his friend. Bucky grasped it and with a single hefty tug, Steve pulled him upright. Swinging his legs over the edge of the table, Bucky swayed uncertainly for a moment, finding his balance without his left arm. He rolled his shoulders out and then pushed his chin to the left and then the right, getting two solid cracks out of his neck.

"How ya feelin'?" Steve asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Not bad, all things considered. Coming out of cryo was a lot easier than normal."

Shuri shot Steve a look to say '_I told you so_.' She swiped a finger across her tablet and raised the lights. Bucky blinked at her, trying to make sense of her intricate hairstyle along with the bright orange dress she wore with a pair of sleek sneakers.

"Well, your vitals are normal and your mental state appears stable."

Bucky snorted. "Stable is a relative term."

Shuri raised an eyebrow but wisely chose not to take the bait. Instead she continued to observe him, taking copious notes that Steve hoped would help for the deprogramming process. Bucky afforded her one last glance before he turned to Steve, a small smile tugging at his lips.

"So," he leaned forward, resting his forearm on his thigh. "Either the world's about to end or someone figured out how to get HYDRA's junk out of my head, which is it?"

Steve rolled his eyes but afforded Bucky a small laugh. He couldn't remember the last time they shared any kind of banter like this. For a flash of a second he felt like it was old times, but then he remembered that they were about as far away from old times as two people could get. Bucky shifted his weight, trying to get comfortable as his left shoulder rose too high, jutting out at a weird angle. Steve eyed the flexible black cap stretched over the metal arm socket and tried not to frown. It seemed longer than two months ago that he helped Bucky stagger onto a quinjet and helped him deal with the consequences of Tony blowing off his metal arm and the searing pain the hot metal transferred up to his skin, accompanied with the constant twitching that severing the old neural connections caused. It took a team of four Wakandan scientists, led by Shuri, to scan, examine, and operate on what remained of Bucky's arm, taking it apart piece by piece until only the socket remained. The loss of Bucky's arm was just another real, lasting consequence of the explosive confrontation that still seemed to be dealing out blows even weeks later.

"Steve?" Bucky caught him staring.

"Uh yeah, no, it's not the end of the world. Shuri thinks she's found a way to deprogram you."

All eyes turned to the princess, who fixed a beady eye on Steve. "I don't think I've found a way, I know I have."

Hope filtered onto Bucky's face, the first such expression Steve had seen from him since discovering he was still alive. "Are you-" he volleyed between Steve and Shuri, whose smile only continued to grow, "you're serious?"

"I am," she promised, and gestured towards the door that would take them back into her laboratory. "Come, we'll tell you everything."

X X X

"And that, my friend, is how it's done."

Sadie arched an eyebrow but accepted the steaming cup of coffee that Rhodey held out for her.

"And this is supposed to be?"

"A latte, decaf per your nutritionist's orders." She made a face at the notion of drinking decaffeinated coffee. Rhodey grinned. "Yeah, I don't get the point of decaf coffee either but I need a guinea pig and you're the best I've got."

"I'm so honored," she replied in a dry voice that only widened his smirk. Sadie eyed the foamy surface of the latte with some trepidation. Over the past two days she'd gamely submitted to trying six other of Rhodey's attempts at perfecting the art of the espresso machine, each one failing in one way or another. She had to admit though that this attempt was his best looking and didn't smell burnt, which was a marked improvement on his fourth try. Taking care to gently blow over the surface, she gave the coffee another brief moment before raising the cup to her lips and taking an experimental sip.

"Well?"

Rhodey braced the arms of his chair and leaned slightly forward in anticipation, reminding her of a soldier overeager to please his commanding officer. Allowing the coffee to coat her tongue, she sussed out the slight sweetness from the perfectly steamed milk to savor the bitter coffee that hit just the right spot. Slowly her lips curled up in a smile.

"It's just like they say, seventh time's the charm," she teased, but Rhodey was too pleased with his success to be bothered by her teasing. "If you practice this a few more times I'm sure you'll make a cup of coffee that will impress even Doctor Palmer."

"I'd better, there's a lot of pride riding on the line."

Sadie suspected there was more than mere pride riding on the playful bet between Rhodey and his physical therapist. Though Rodey took care to hedge his words in the most casual way possible it was hard to miss his clear admiration and affection for Doctor Palmer. A joking bet was a good way to break the ice and Sadie privately hoped that he managed to pass the test with flying colors in order to raise himself in Doctor Palmer's estimation. There was something sweet and endearing about the bet that put Sadie at ease. She liked the notion that people still met and flirted the same way they did before because then perhaps the greater world awaiting her outside the compound wasn't so radically different and scary after all.

The thought of the outside world set her slightly on edge. She sipped her coffee while Rhodey reviewed his coffee-making process, intent on trying another cup to taste his progress for himself. While he muttered under his breath, Sadie stared over the kitchen counter towards the windows and the beautiful early summer morning unfolding over the compound. Only the day before, she'd been granted a reprieve from two solid days of medical tests and she was finally able to venture outside where she felt the sun on her face and the warm breeze ruffled her hair. Under the safe shade of a large umbrella, she sat on the patio and read a history book until the light faded, forcing her to retreat back indoors where Rhodey decided it was time to introduce her to television, beginning with a review of the remote, the various channels and different types of programming. When his tutorial proved to be overwhelming, he reigned himself in and settled on a channel called ESPN where Sadie found herself dumbstruck watching what he promised her was a baseball game being broadcast live all the way from San Francisco. Together they watched the game, where she often found herself more interested in everything but the game - the bright lights in the stadium, the members of the crowd, the visible tattoos on the players' arms, and especially the commercials that rattled off a dizzying amount of products with so much color and sound that Sadie thought she might be sick watching all of it. Rhodey did his best to explain things as they came up but by the time Sadie crawled into her bed her mind was drowning in a deluge of information, leaving her exhausted and even more hesitant about the outside world than before.

Absently, she rubbed her thumbs along the outside edge of her coffee cup. She would have moved to take her necklace, but the chain remained hidden beneath the high neck of her pale blue dress, a conservative cap-sleeved garment courtesy of Pepper Potts who assured her that full skirt helped hide her thin frame and was a classic style. Sadie wasn't sure about style, but she still felt uneasy wearing such a nice dress without stockings despite Pepper's insistence that those were a thing of the past. Every time she felt the skirt brush past her bare legs, Sadie had to fight the urge to retreat into her room and hide from anyone who might see her running around with naked legs and her hair done so simply. Glancing down at her plain flat shoes, she wondered what her mother would think of the skirt cutting above her knees or the fact that women who worked at the compound exclusively wore pants. But just the mere allusion to her mother hit Sadie hard, pushing against a grief she'd been holding off because she simply didn't know how to address it.

"Something on your mind?"

Sadie blinked owlishly at Rhodey over the top of her cup. "No, I'm just a little distracted this morning."

"Looking forward to your next round with Ross?"

Rhodey grinned when Sadie rolled her eyes. "Does anyone actually like spending time with that man?"

"He's got some buddies in Washington, mostly old Army brass and senators who share his brand of politics."

"Sounds miserable," she muttered, thinking of the times she'd been thrust into the political lion's den when she was working to get IHAP off the ground. "But it also explains a lot."

"What does he want to talk about today?"

"No clue," she said as she rested a hip against the counter. "It's the first time he's been by since the finger-cutting incident, so I assume he's going to want to know more about my so-called enhancement. I've gotten the impression that he thinks I'm lying."

"About not knowing how you wound up here?"

She nodded. "That and where Steve and Bucky are."

Rhodey snorted. "Ross must be really desperate if he's leaning on you to answer the impossible."

"That's one way to look at it. I think he thinks I'm protecting them by withholding information. But the reality is that I think I want to find Steve and Bucky even more than he does."

The admission was the first of its kind she'd made to anyone, though she thought it was hardly surprising. At night she caught herself rereading Steve and Bucky's dossiers, pouring through the pages for any clues she could extract that could lead her to their whereabouts. Sadie hoped, in spite of her mounting fears, that sooner or later she would be allowed to leave the compound and her heart was set on finding Bucky and Steve. But, as it was, she was in the same predicament as Secretary Ross: no matter how hard she searched for clues or racked her spotty memory, she couldn't come up with even a wisp of an idea as to where they could be.

"That makes sense. To be honest, I wish Steve was here. It'd make all of this a whole hell of a lot easier."

Sadie considered the familiarity that Steve brought to the table, along with his own experiences assimilating into a brand new world. Blowing out a sigh into her coffee, Sadie felt her shoulders slump a little. "Tell me about it."

"It'll get better," Rhodey noted.

In her heart, Sadie wanted to believe him but she couldn't see her way around the dozens of roadblocks in her path. More than anything she wanted to find Bucky, to see for herself that he was truly alive and then throw herself into his arms. But finding Bucky was predicated on somehow getting out of the compound, of having identification, a means of transit and a method of financing her travels. According to history and Tony, she'd been declared legally dead some five years after her disappearance, and as far as Sadie knew even in the twenty-first century a dead woman couldn't simply walk up to the counter and purchase an airplane ticket. Moreover, she had no idea where to start looking and even if she did find Bucky, there was no telling what state he would be in. From everything she'd learned it would be a miracle if he even remembered her at all; for him to still love her the way he did so many decades before was nothing more than a childish fantasy. The thought of Bucky looking at her with no recognition and no affection or love in his eyes threatened to undo her where she stood.

But those were all bridges she would have to wait to cross. For now she was stuck dealing with more present problems, the least of which was Ross's apparent distrust of her and the fact that women no longer wore stockings with their dresses and skirts. Sadie bit back a sigh and settled for a small smile for her new friend.

"Right now I'm more interested in whether or not you're using your coffee making skills to try and entice Doctor Palmer to go out on a date with you."

Rhodey balked at the notion just a fraction to much to be believed. Sadie gladly took the bait and was still giving him a hard time when the elevator doors opened. Tony strode into the common area, wearing yet another strange ensemble and a pair of glasses with lightly tinted lenses.

"Rhodey, still fighting the espresso machine?" Rhodey waved him off and Tony turned his attention to Sadie. "Toto, nice dress."

Sadie fought a scowl. As a general rule, she didn't care for most nicknames, but she particularly disliked Tony's newfound moniker. He'd made more than one _Wizard of Oz _joke in the days since their meeting and lately he'd taken to calling her Toto, as a means of perpetually reminding her that she was stuck in her own version of Oz. Still, Tony was her one and only buffer against Secretary Ross's more belligerent lines of questioning and so she put up with his antics. She also suspected that any protests on her part would only yield even more sarcastic quips and an even worse nickname.

"Thank you," she muttered, brushing invisible dirt off the skirt.

Tony jerked his head towards the conference room. "C'mon, Ross is on his way up and he looks twitchier than usual."

Without waiting for Sadie to fall into step with him, Tony spun on one heel and cut across the common area towards the conference room. Another sigh escaped Sadie's lips. Watching Tony's retreating back, she considered what would happen if she fled to her room and locked the door behind her.

Tony whipped back around and brought his hands together in a few sharp claps. "Chop, chop, nurse!"

Sadie frowned. "And the morning was going so well."

Rhodey snorted in sympathetic laughter.

Tony left the conference room door open and she drifted to the opposite side of the table and her usual place. Within two minutes Secretary Ross appeared, a terse expression bristling his mustache. Behind him an aide trailed into the room, carrying a cardboard file box. The sight of the box both irritated and concerned Sadie. She'd thought that by now Secretary Ross would have run out of questions to ask and might have finally accepted the truth for what it was. She didn't want to know what was in the box because she suspected it was only more painful history coming to haunt her. Out of the corner of her eye, Sadie caught Tony rolling his eyes to the ceiling. His reaction made her feel better; at the very least she knew she wasn't being unreasonable in her trepidation.

"So, turns out you've been hiding a few tricks up your sleeve, Miss Reid."

The one and only good thing about Secretary Ross that she'd identified was that he didn't waste time getting to the point.

"I'm not sure that hiding is the appropriate term," she countered delicately.

Ross unbuttoned his jacket and took a seat directly across from her. The way he crossed his arms over his chest matched his grumpy expression. "Then what would you call it?"

"Simply another unexpected and unwelcome surprise."

"According to Doctor Cho's notes, you can heal yourself at an unprecedented rate. She's confident that's how you survived both the freezing and thawing processes. That's hardly what I'd call an unwelcome surprise."

"That depends on your perspective."

A flash of movement in her periphery distracted Sadie. Tony pulled out the chair to her left and sat down, face unreadable.

"Perspective aside, I'm having a hard time believing that you could be walking around with that kind of power and not know."

Sadie bit the inside of her cheek to hold in her sigh. How many times were they going to have to repeat this same song and dance? "I can assure you I didn't know, Mr. Secretary. How could I considering how long I spent in cryostasis?"

"Because we don't know how long you were actually under," Ross snapped. "And call me crazy, but I think you'd remember undergoing experiments to receive enhancements."

"That's not necessarily true. I treated plenty of soldiers who suffered memory loss as a result of the trauma they experienced on the battlefield. But that's beside the point, Mister Secretary. The bottom line is whatever happened to me is a mystery to both of us and unfortunately I don't see that changing any time soon."

Ross pressed the tips of his fingers together, hiding part of his face from view. The intensity of his gaze only grew as he tried to identify any sign, no matter how small, to confirm his bias. They were locked in a strange war of words and wits that had no tangible end. Sadie wasn't sure what Ross ultimately wanted from her and the longer he dragged her down stale rabbit holes the more she believed he didn't really know what he wanted from her either. Was it truly information about Steve and Bucky? Or was there something more? He reminded her of the Army brass she met during the war, men who didn't know what to make of her straight no-nonsense attitude and unblushing countenance. She wasn't what he expected and that left him at a loss as to what to do with her.

"I can see this is going to be a productive conversation."

Tony's colorful commentary accompanied him getting back to his feet, too fidgety for his own good. He swung around the table with an exaggerated movement of his arms and grasped the door handle, pushing it open and jerking his head towards the kitchen.

"I'm getting coffee. Anyone want any coffee? Anyone? You?" He tipped his chin up to Ross who answered with a murderous look. "Toto?" Sadie rolled her eyes and held up her coffee. "Right, hey, what about you?" He poked his head out into the common area where Ross's aide flinched so hard at being addressed that he dropped his phone. "Just making sure, and _Candy Crush_? Really?"

Sadie had to give Tony one thing as he practically sashayed out of the conference room to make his coffee, he certainly knew how to cause a scene and create a distraction. A moment of uncomfortable silence quivered in the air in the wake of his departure. Sadie took the time to recompose herself and reign in her growing temper. The last thing she needed was for Ross to catch her off guard or, worse, to provoke her into losing her cool and saying something she might regret.

"Let's start from the top, Miss Reid. In light of recent developments I want to go everything you say you do remember from the beginning."

It took every ounce of Sadie's considerable willpower to keep from dropping her head in her hands.

Thirty minutes later Sadie felt as though she'd been sucked into some strange real-life broken record situation. She bitterly regretted not taking Tony up for his offer to make her another cup of coffee because her patience was stretched to the breaking point. In all her life she'd never met a man with such a penchant for running around in circles, but Secretary Ross seemed to think only in terms of circular logic. Every question he asked her fed directly into the next and the next until somehow they arced all the way back around to his starting point, the very root of his frustration: how was it possible that Sadie couldn't remember the details he most desperately wanted to hear?

By now Sadie expected to feel an ache between her temples, but every time she thought she felt the first wisp of a headache it disappeared. It took her far too long to attribute that strange sensation to her enhancement and she wished she had more time to really soak up the fact that her body was healing at such a rapid rate that it nipped headaches in the bud before they even began. And if anyone was capable of giving her a migraine it was certainly the man pacing on the other side of the table. In the stretches of silence where Ross tried to collect and organize his thoughts, Sadie did her best to remain as still and quiet as possible. She didn't want to give him any more ammunition than he thought he already had. Even then, she caught herself glancing over at Tony every so often, just to see if he'd slipped into a coma over the course of this needless meeting.

"You spent over a year travelling Europe with Rogers and the Commandos. You know Barnes better than anyone. Are you really gonna tell me you don't have a clue where he'd go if he was in trouble?"

Tony let his head fall back with a pronounced snap and Sadie felt his frustration acutely.

"I really don't." A hard edge crept into her voice. "You keep telling me that the Bucky I knew is long gone so how could I possibly know what he would do now? But if you want my honest opinion, you're asking the wrong question."

"And why is that, Miss Reid?"

Sadie hated the way Ross called her Miss Reid. Disrespect dripped off each syllable, permeating the already tense air. Drawing herself up she crossed her arms over her chest.

"Because when they served together Bucky always deferred to Steve. If you really want to find them, then you're looking for the wrong man."

Tony sat up straighter, learning forward with renewed interest.

Ross considered her for a long moment.

"Alright then, where would Rogers go?"

Sadie knew it was wrong to stoop to Ross's level, but she just couldn't help herself. She'd had enough of this self-important man and his unnecessary, futile power plays. Against her volition the corner of her mouth lifted.

"I have no earthly idea."

Tony coughed on a laugh. Ross, however, was far less amused.

"Miss Reid, don't mistake me for a patient man. I don't take kindly to you making light of this situation."

"And I don't take kindly to being accused of things I didn't do."

"Nobody's accusing you of anything, Miss Reid. Quite the opposite. What I want is to figure out is how you wound up here and what Bucky Barnes has to do with it."

"Why do you think Bucky has anything to do with my disappearance? From the sound of it he was just as much of a victim of HYDRA as I was, and if you're truly so desperate to find him I don't know why you're trying to go through me. If what you say is true and Arnim Zola really erased Bucky's memories, then I guarantee you that he started with me and did it with the fury of God's own thunder."

For a tense second nobody moved or spoke. Sadie's words resonated in the conference room, bouncing off the glass walls, sinking into each occupant in a different manner. Just acknowledging aloud that Bucky likely didn't remember her needled the tender heart of Sadie's worries and insecurities. Ross, on the other hand, raised his eyebrows and then reached for the file box.

"You wanna bet?"

He cast the lid aside and tipped the box over. A stack of several black notebooks tumbled out, sliding across the table's slick surface. Little colored flags stuck out from the edges and she could see folded sheets of paper and other objects stuck in between the pages. Her heart leapt into her throat.

"My patience is starting to wear thin, Miss Reid. I know you're hiding something and one way or another I'm going to find out."

And with that he stood and strode out of the room. Through the windows Sadie watched his aides all scramble to their feet to follow him towards the elevators. She continued to stare after him even after he disappeared from eyesight. Frustration, indignation, and most of all hopelessness bubbled up to the surface, forcing the words into her throat and up to the tip of her tongue where they leapt off as pleading and desperate as she felt.

"I'm not hiding anything."

"I know."

Tony's response was so quick and casual she almost didn't catch it. Whipping her head around to look at him, she discovered he was staring at the notebooks on the table and not at her. When she didn't immediately respond he took it upon himself to elaborate.

"You're not the long-con type of woman; trust me, I've known a couple over the years. It's clear you don't know anything, just look at you. You stumbled out of the ice half-starved, tortured, and just as in the dark as the rest of us are. Besides, are you really gonna look me in the eye and tell me that if you knew where Barnes was you wouldn't be searching for a dozen different ways out of this place?"

In that moment Sadie's respect for Tony skyrocketed. Just hearing that he believed her, that he knew Ross was chasing phantoms down dead end roads made all the difference in the world to her. But his affirmation that he was somewhat on her side raised a litany of other questions she was at last ready to ask.

"If you believe me, then why are you going along with these ridiculous interrogations?"

"Because I need more time." Even the way he got out of his chair reminded her of Howard, a funny mix of swagger and business. A line formed between his brows as he strayed to the windows. "Time to figure out the extent of your enhancements, to figure out a game plan for you that doesn't involve being a semi-permanent prisoner here, just time to-" he broke off and wiped his face with a hand.

Sadie couldn't claim to know Tony well at all but in this one instance she could read him like an open book. "To figure out what to do with me before Steve finds out I'm still alive."

Tony looked back at her, one corner of his mouth lifting in a smirk. "You're a lot more observant than Ross is giving you credit for."

She shrugged. "The hazard of being a woman in a man's world."

He snorted in humorless laughter. "I'll bet."

He made to tap at the window and then turned around, bracing his hands on the sill and bowing his spine to the frustration of their situation. Sadie thought he looked more tired than their past meetings, his skin pale and drawn. She thought about the little details Rhodey let slip in their conversations and about the enormous pressure that must be weighing on Tony's shoulders when it came to letting Steve and Bucky get away, not aided in the least by her sudden emergence. But then she considered something Rhodey said earlier in the morning, about how much easier this entire process would be if Steve were involved, echoing her desperate desire to reunite with her friend because, if nothing else, he could help her make heads or tails of this brave new world. The fact that Tony hadn't swallowed his pride and reached out to Steve spoke absolute volumes.

"That must have been some falling out you had with Steve," she remarked, daring to wade into the uncertain waters.

Tony's gaze hardened when it snapped up to her. She started to recoil in anticipation of his rebuke but then he let go of his momentary vitriol and allowed his shoulders to sag. "That's the understatement of the year."

"Because of Bucky."

"Just a little bit."

There was a harshness to his admission, not direct at Sadie but at the universe in general. All she learned from Rhodey was that the mishap between Steve and Tony occurred in Siberia, at the former HYDRA facility where it kept Bucky. According to him, the personal details were a story that he couldn't tell and that if she really wanted to know then she was going to have to work up the courage to ask Tony herself. Sadie dreaded bringing the subject up for several reasons, the least of which was provoking Tony's ire, but also because she herself wasn't sure she wanted to know lest it only pile onto the enormous mountain of sorrows burying Bucky alive. But now that she was facing a no-win situation with Ross, Tony was maybe her best shot at extricating herself from this situation and getting a chance to rebuild her life such as it was.

"Tony, please," she pleaded softly. "What happened?"

"Trust me, Toto. You really, really don't want to know."

"But considering I'm tangled up in this mess I think it's only fair that I do."

Tony evaluated her carefully for a second before he shook his head in disgust. "Okay, you asked for it," he muttered under his breath. Pushing away from the window sill he retreated to the table and took up one of the black notebooks. "These are all Barnes's. Ross's people took them during the thirty minutes he was in our custody. I haven't read them myself but I hear it's mostly him trying to put his scrambled brain back together." He opened the cover of the book in his hand. "I bet even he was smart enough not to write down all of his victims in here, my parents included."

Sadie flinched when he snapped the cover shut and tossed the book back on the table. She stared at the notebook where it landed, too stunned by this revelation to make a sound. What she thought she heard Tony say sounded utterly impossible. There was no way that Bucky would ever-could ever-kill Howard. How many times had she seen them together at the pubs howling at the moon or stumbling into briefings the morning after those late nights? Bucky and Howard were good friends, always hustling GI's at darts, getting lost in deep philosophical conversations about war tactics, and more than once Sadie watched in amusement as Bucky used his uniform and good looks to help Howard woo the local girls before retreating back to her. Howard helped him pick out her engagement ring, and more than once he lamented that he'd never get as lucky as Bucky did. Picturing Bucky killing Howard Stark in cold blood didn't make sense. It defied everything she knew and forced her to confront the reality about Bucky that she just didn't want to see.

She started to say something in reply but stopped herself upon observing the cold expression on Tony's face. The last thing he wanted to hear were placations from Bucky's ex-fiancée recently returned from the dead. There was literally nothing she could say to improve the situation and, in fact, Sadie knew anything she said now would just make it worse.

"And Steve-" she prompted him instead, figuring it was best to get to the end as quickly as possible.

"Knew and didn't say a word."

Much as she hated to admit it, Sadie could see the basis for their falling out. Keeping a secret of that magnitude was enough to shatter any friendship. Glancing over to Bucky's notebooks, she understood now Tony's reticence to discuss Bucky and even the moments of his outright disgust aimed towards him. If she could ever meet the Japanese pilots who dropped the bombs that destroyed the ship that ultimately became her father's grave at Pearl Harbor, she certainly wouldn't be interested in sitting down to tea. And someone as guarded and difficult as Tony Stark likely wouldn't take kindly to anyone keeping that kind of information from him.

"I see," she whispered even as her fingers twitched towards the notebooks on the table. The drive to know more about Bucky was now insatiable. Sadie couldn't fathom what HYDRA did to him that could cause him to mindlessly murder someone he once knew well and called a friend. She had to know what answers those notebooks held, not just about what happened to him but whether he remembered her at all and if he knew anything about how she wound up a woman out of time.

"You should read them. I'm sure Ross will want a full book report when he comes back tomorrow."

Tony was clearly finished with the troubles of the day and with her. He made for the door and though she knew she was playing with fire, Sadie called out to him before he left.

"Tony?" He merely turned to look back at her. "I'm sorry about your parents."

His face was a blank slate before he took a deep breath. "Yeah well, what can you do," he shrugged her off and left the conference room, leaving Sadie alone with nothing more than Bucky's memories scattered across the pages of his notebooks.

X X X

Even after she made tea and retreated to the relative safety of her room, Sadie couldn't relax. Not even the storm system that moved in during the afternoon eased the anxiety coursing her veins. Sheets of rain hit the windows with a rhythmic, soothing cadence but that wasn't enough to quell Sadie's nerves or get her to sit still. Every time she tried to sit at her desk a fresh wave of restless energy drove her out of her chair and set her pacing, doing her best not to chew on her thumbnail while she circled her room. Her gaze alternated between the rain trailing down her windows to the notebooks neatly stacked on her desk, each one unopened and unread even four hours after Secretary Ross left.

Sadie didn't know what was wrong with her. When she first woke up, if someone offered her the opportunity to have even this small piece of Bucky she would have leapt without thinking. But now things were different. Having information revealed to her in tantalizing pieces over the course of interviews and impersonal dossiers was one thing, but touching the pages that Bucky touched and reading the words that he wrote was something else entirely. Every time she started to take the first notebook from the stack she stopped herself, feeling as though she was violating him by digging into what of his life he'd managed to piece together. Bucky clearly didn't fill the pages of the books with the intention of anyone else ever reading them and how would he feel if he knew there were people using them as a tool to track him down? How would he feel if he knew that Sadie, someone who used to be so close to him, was thumbing through the pages out of a desperate desire to be near to him?

And then there was the other reason her fears kept her from devouring all of this new information. What if she didn't want to read what was committed in ink? She continued to fidget with her necklace, drawing a thumb over her engagement ring. So much uncertainty clouded the journals but Sadie knew for certain that the man who wrote in them wasn't her fiancé, not anymore. She wasn't sure she could handle the crushing disappointment of reading his notes only to discover he'd regained certain parts of his past but not her? She heart leapt into her throat.

What if Bucky didn't remember her?

Sadie stilled and looked down at the ring pinched between her fingers. Light from her lamp shone off the sapphire's surface. Even decades later she could still remember the nervous energy emitting from him when he gave her the ring, scared that she wouldn't like his unconventional choice. Her heart ached as she considered that that Bucky wouldn't be in the pages and neither would any of their brief but intense history.

And yet Sadie knew that was her selfishness taking over. If she ever had any hope of seeing Bucky again then she would have to face this scenario one way or another. Wouldn't it be better to know now as opposed to learning the ugly truth if and when they came face to face? At least then she would be prepared for the worst.

With that rationale bolstering her, she stopped pacing and returned to her desk. The tips of her fingers trembled when she reached out for the top notebook and slipped the elastic band off the cover. Sadie closed her eyes and took one more beat before opening the cover.

"Whatever it is, you can handle it," she told herself in a firm but soft voice. "You've been through worse."

But it wasn't what Bucky wrote on the first page that took her breath away. Rather, it was his handwriting that caused her knees to give. She sank to the floor, fingers brushing past the scrawl that she would know anywhere. How many times had she peered over his shoulder while he wrote to Rebecca? She liked to wind an arm across his collar and point out little grammatical errors just to annoy him before planting a pert kiss to his cheek. More than once he'd pulled her into his lap so he could let her dictate her responses to Rebecca's questions. Rebecca let her read all of his letters home, even the ones from before they fell in love and Sadie's mother gave her the letter he'd written asking for her mother's blessing. And then there was the note that Bucky wrote her, a hasty apology on a scrap of paper that she carried with her everywhere she went. Sadie read and reread the note so many times the paper was starting to fall apart but she loved that little tattered scrap and the untidy scrawl with all of her heart. Bucky's handwriting in the notebook was a perfect match to all of his letters, potent enough on its own to bring tears to her eyes. She traced her index finger along with the first word, caught between crying and laughing because it finally felt real to her.

Bucky was alive. He was miraculously alive and he'd written in the very same notebook she now held in her hands.

Even the first word struck her as momentous and crucial in its own right.

_Brooklyn_.

Leave it to him to start at the beginning, she thought with a tiny smile even as the first tear slipped onto her cheek. Brooklyn accompanied a date: _March 10, 1917_, his birthday. They'd only celebrated once together but she recalled it involved a cake that Howard produced seemingly out of thin air and enough alcohol to turn all of the Howling Commandos into potted plants. Bucky told her once about how his mom always pulled out the stops for his and Rebecca's birthdays, cooking special dinners and scraping together just enough money to buy them a nice present that she presented with the lament that her babies just wouldn't stop growing.

A few lines down he'd scribbled a few more bullet points, names or locations that Sadie didn't know. Further into the notebook he'd jotted down the names of his family, odd fragments of memories that he hadn't quite pieced together. His early attempts at putting points on a timeline were rough and heavily punctuated with gaps. She could see the times his frustration got the better of him and he pressed his pen down too hard, poking holes through pages, even ripping the paper in one place. From between the pages little extra bits of information jumped out at her - printouts of obituaries, a picture of his family's apartment building, and postcards he'd gotten depicting the Brooklyn Bridge and even the Statue of Liberty. Sometimes his writing was almost impossible to decipher and she guessed those were moments he wrote as fast as possible to commit the memory to page out of fear that his moment of clarity would slip through his fingers. Her heart broke for him with each page, each scattered compilation of events that he could now recall but seemed so wholly divorced from his emotions. Bucky wrote little questions next to certain entries, perhaps the saddest of all being the question he wrote next to Rebecca's name. _Little sister - did we get along?_

If only Bucky knew! Another knife twisted in her gut. If only poor Rebecca knew that her brother had been alive this entire time!

Sadie poured through the notebook, spanning an odd assortment of years of his childhood and she absently reached for the next only to start when a picture of Steve in his uniform slipped onto her lap. From that point forward Bucky's musings slowly grew more coherent, transitioning from single words and phrases to full sentences, lists of details he remembered about certain people, and even answering his own questions in the margins. The steady progress he made continued to grow until she reached the middle of the third notebook and another printout stuck between the pages. Sadie unfolded it and let out a little cry of relief mixed with a gasp.

All her fears turned out to be unfounded because there she was, memorialized in black and white. An SSR photographer must have taken the picture because she recognized the SSR hospital. She thought she wore her white uniform quite well as she treated a patient, smiling demurely more for his sake than the camera's. Sadie had never seen the picture before, but she was startled to see a caption set beneath it like she'd seen in other history books. Was she really in history books? The notion amused and exasperated her in equal turns.

Setting the picture aside, she let out the breath she'd been holding for far too long. There it was in all its glory.

_Sadie Reid - New York Point of Embarkation_.

Seeing her name released tension from her body in a flood and she sank deeper against her desk out of sheer relief. Below that he'd scrawled out a note that drew a laugh out of her she didn't think was possible.

_She didn't like me_.

No, she hadn't cared for Bucky on their first meeting, but back then she had no idea how important he would turn out to be. She loved that he remembered their meetcute and the sparks that flew between them even during a simple medical exam. In the years after his death Sadie often thought about their first meeting and found it more perfect every time. Seeing his brief summary in print did wonders for her. For the first time in days she felt lighter and less afraid. Clutching the notebook to her chest, she let her head fall against her desk and she closed her eyes, letting fresh tears trickle down her cheeks even as she smiled up to her ceiling.

"He remembers."

For now, even in the face of everything that still stood in her way, that was enough.

X X X

Rhodey couldn't get comfortable. A combination of numbness and sharp pain woke him at four o'clock that morning, leaving him with a pins and needles sensation in his spine that refused to subside no matter what position he tried. Easing himself higher in his wheelchair, he did his best to shift his weight a little to his left side but to no avail. His doctors warned him that he would experience all manner of aches and pains as his spinal cord continued to heal and this was one of his worst episodes yet. When he realized he wouldn't be getting any more sleep, he ventured out into the common area and turned on the TV to catch up on sports highlights before Doctor Palmer arrived for his morning physical therapy session.

A blanket of tension smothered the compound. It always felt this way on the rare nights Secretary Ross made himself at home. Rhodey wished he would make the short drive back to the city and stay there but Ross seemed even more hesitant than usual to leave. That probably had everything to do with the stack of black notebooks he'd seen Sadie carry back to her room the day before, bearing a shell-shocked expression. She never came out for dinner which was just as well, it was a stiff event with Ross presiding over cartons of Chinese takeout. If Rhodey had been able to avoid the affair he would have too.

Another pain shot up from the point where his sensation ended. Fighting a grimace, he shifted again.

"You too, huh?"

Tony wandered into the room and flopped down on the sofa. He dragged a hand over his face still drowsy with sleep. Rhodey didn't answer him right away; he didn't want to pile onto Tony's woes any more by revealing the source of his restlessness.

"What's the score?"

Rhodey raised an eyebrow. "To what?"

"I don't know - to the game -" Tony circled a lazy finger in the air, searching for the answer to his own question. "What sports are on right now?"

"Uh, considering it's five-thirty in the morning-"

"You know what I mean."

"Baseball and hockey. And you'll be happy to know the Red Sox lost."

"A victory for New Yorkers everywhere," Tony grumbled and groaned as he sat up to watch the early-morning sports commentary. The morning programming was tailor-made for guys squeezing in early morning workouts, broken down into segments that could be easily digested between reps or during grueling runs on the treadmill. Another stab in his back accompanied a familiar stabbing in his heart. This time three months ago Rhodey would have been up with the rest of them, pounding the pavement.

"Honestly, Rhodey, I don't know how you watch this stuff."

The mild contempt in Tony's voice might have amused Rhodey on any other morning. Instead of fighting fire with wit, Rhodey reached forward to the coffee table and snatched up the remote. He tossed it to Tony where it landed on his chest before bouncing off onto the floor.

"Knock yourself out."

Grumbling under his breath, Tony retrieved the remote from the floor and fumbled with the buttons until he changed it over to his preferred news network. He slowly sat up at the same time Rhodey gripped the arms of his chair and leaned forward, mouth falling open in surprise. Well, he supposed he shouldn't have been too terribly surprised but even Rhodey had to admit, he and his contacts had outdone themselves orchestrating this leak. Still, it was jarring to see Sadie's Army Nursing Corps personnel photo splashed across the screen accompanied by the headline "_Sixty-seven year old mystery solved_!" An anchor sat to the right of the images speaking at a rapid clip all about Sadie and her alleged recovery. Tony hit the volume button several times with a sharp thumb until the anchor's voice filled the entire space.

"We've received reports from multiple anonymous sources that after her recovery Sadie Reid was flown to the United States where she's being held for further examination and interrogation at the Avengers Compound."

"Being held - fucking great they're making it sound like she's a prisoner," Tony grumbled and shook his head.

Rhodey bit the inside of his cheek to keep from pointing out that technically she was being held at the compound, like a prisoner with the world's most comfortable set up. Rather than open the door for any accusations, he did his best to pretend to take this bombshell with an air of shock and surprise. Sooner or later Tony would figure out he was the source of the leak but that wasn't something they had to get into right away. Luckily for Rhodey, Tony's brain was already racing far ahead of the source and looking to the massive consequences now staring him down. He got to his feet, muffling a groan in his hands before he scrubbed his face.

"Gird your loins, Rhodey. Today's about to get real ugly."

Tony's prophecy turned out to be a severe understatement. By the time Doctor Palmer came upstairs with him after physical therapy, the entire floor was crawling with suits - men and women of all ages with cell phones glued to their ears or up to their eyeballs in paperwork. Meredith paused just outside of the elevator, her hand dropping onto Rhodey's shoulder.

"I think maybe we should take a rain check on that cup of coffee," she murmured.

"Yeah," said Rhodey slowly, blinking in the face of so many strangers. Physical therapy had only been an hour and a half and somehow in that short window the masses had descended on the compound like a plague. Shaking his head clear, he offered Meredith a weak smile. "How about next week?"

She gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "It's a date," she promised and drummed up a smile. "Good luck in there."

After she left, Rhodey wheeled his way down the main aisle, garnering more than one curious glance. He remembered then that his paralysis wasn't a widely-publicized event. Everyone thought it was for the best to keep the particulars out of the news in order to protect Vision from further scrutiny. He could only imagine that the sight of him-of War Machine-wheelchair bound was enough to make anyone pause even in these extraordinary circumstances.

Ignoring the eyes on him, he rolled down towards the conference room, hoping to get a glimpse of the goings-on. A nasty part of him privately hoped that Ross was cowering in a chair, surrounded by a dozen members of the UN yelling at him for his total lack of transparency and for failing to follow the provisions of the accords that he championed. After all of the headache Ross had put them through over the past two weeks, Rhodey thought it was the least the man deserved. Between two knots of harried staffers he could see through the window into the conference room. His stomach sank.

Instead of Ross suffering the consequences of his monumental bad decisions, he stood at one end of the table, gesturing with a sharp hand. His face was red and eyebrows knit together and Rhodey could just hear his muffled shouting. The other members of the council, people that Rhodey did recognize from both the signing and other events, all sat stone still, staring at him with slightly slack jaws. Tony stood at the window, looking far too cavalier with his hands shoved in his pockets. But while everyone else in the room was clambering to talk over one another and get a word in edgewise around Ross's bellowing, a lone figure sat in the corner, looking small by comparison. Sadie's bony arms stayed crossed tightly over her chest and a stony expression held her face. The fact that she sat shunted off to the side while everyone else in the room debated her fate boiled Rhodey's blood. He remembered that helpless feeling when others started talking about his future with the Avengers shortly after his accident. There was nothing more insulting and degrading than having no say in your future.

Rhodey was so busy examining Sadie that he didn't see Tony push away from his post and wander out of the room. Sadie watched him go but hesitated and just when she was about to get up she changed her mind and stayed put. Tony let himself out of the room and jerked his head towards the far end of the common area where they could talk without being overheard.

"How's it going?"

"Oh you know...terrible."

"Ross in trouble?"

"Enough, but the Accords don't reserve punishment for the gatekeepers so he'll have to take this verbal lashing, but that's about it."

"And in the meantime Sadie is being talked about like she's not even there?"

"Something like that. Ross is posting extra guards and snipers on the premises in case Rogers tries to stage another prison break. Everyone on the council is already pissed about the Raft incident; they'd rather die than suffer the embarrassment of him breaking her out of here."

They came to a stop near the staircase where Tony could still keep an eye on the conference room but any nosey staffer would actually have to walk over to them to hear their conversation. Rhodey leaned back, his back finally feeling better after physical therapy. There was an imbalance of power at the table that he recognized didn't benefit Sadie any more than it would benefit him, and he wondered if she found it offensive that the majority of the people discussing her fate were middle-aged white men. He shook his head clear of the thought and returned to the matter at hand.

"You don't actually think he'd try, do you?"

"Depends on where he's hiding. I wouldn't put it past him."

Neither would Rhodey. "How is she taking it?"

"Well, she's now officially an international incident and her face is on every major news network in the world, so I'm assuming she could be better. Mostly I think she's just too overwhelmed to know what to do."

Rhodey hadn't completely considered that part of the inevitable fallout of his decision to go against Ross. In his mind he'd only thought about the injustice of her situation and how now wasn't the time to abandon the Accords. The voluminous Accords, however, gave him a brand new idea to help Sadie navigate this mess she'd been thrown into.

"There's bound to be a loophole or two in the Accords for a situation like this. Sadie's not a fighter and honestly if her enhancement is limited to just healing herself then-"

"You can go through the Accords with a fine-toothed comb all you want, but she's not getting out of here unless she's released into someone else's custody. Nobody is going to just let her go out into the world without testing her enhancements and besides, where would she go?" Tony's frown deepened. "Aside from the two most wanted criminals in the world everyone else she knew is dead; I checked."

Rhodey's heart sank into his stomach. That was another detail he hadn't considered. "Still," he said slowly, "giving her a choice has to be better than what Ross has been doing."

"Yeah," Tony finally agreed. He dropped his gaze to his feet and shifted his weight in a fit of discomfort. "One of these days I might even thank you for creating this clusterfuck."

"I'm sorry, what was that?"

A pained expression pulled at Tony's mouth. "Don't make me say it again."

"I wouldn't dream of it," he mused, surprised that Tony was so slow on the uptake. Though Rhodey was positive he'd effectively covered up his tracks and nobody would find out he was the leak, he was glad that Tony could see right through him. Rhodey didn't like keeping secrets from his friends. Even though Tony knew and didn't seem all that bothered, Rhodey felt the sudden urge to explain himself. "I couldn't stay quiet. After everything that's happened lately and knowing the consequences of holding people against their will for flimsy reasons - I just - it wasn't right."

"Yeah," Tony kicked at the ground. "I probably also ought to thank you for not saying 'I told you so.'"

"The day's still young, Tony. Don't get too far ahead of yourself."

For the first time in days, a genuine smile pulled at Tony's lips and he coughed over a laugh. The tension between them eased. Rhodey felt better knowing that Tony wasn't going to blow a gasket over his decision and that he also wasn't going to report him to the council.

"Ross is on the warpath. If he finds out it was you-"

"He won't. I've got friends in places he can't reach. Besides, what is he gonna do? Kick the paraplegic guy off the Avengers? I doubt I'm worth the bad press he'd get."

"I've gotta say, watching him flounder for an explanation has been pretty fun."

"You need to get out more," Rhodey pointed out and Tony's chest rose in a half-chuckle.

The conference door room flew open and Ross appeared. He searched the common area until he found the pair of them. "Stark! Get back in here!"

Tony shook his head and Rhodey thought he saw a flash of regret on Tony's face - though what that specific regret was he couldn't say.

"Do me a favor and start going through the Accords. See if there's any provision that might help us out."

He clapped Rhodey on the shoulder once before making his way back to the open door. A pang of sympathy tugged at Rhodey's heart; he wouldn't wish the coming misery on anyone and especially not Tony. But he took comfort that as long as Tony was in the room Sadie had something of an ally. After all, this wasn't about Tony or Ross or Rhodey. This whole nightmare unfolding was about Sadie, an unwitting victim sucked up in a tornado of misery that quite simply refused to let up. He didn't see the storm quieting any time soon, but Rhodey knew that Tony was finally shifting into the right mental state and between the two of them surely they could safely guide her through the worst of it.

Rhodey shifted his chair back into action, bound for the elevator. The Accords were dense and if he had any hope of finding something helpful he would need to get started as soon as possible.

X X X

King T'Challa set Steve up with a small room in a discrete wing of the palace. He was out of the way where he was, which suited everyone. T'Challa didn't have to make a ton of explanations and Steve didn't have to answer many questions. Despite being tucked away from prying eyes, Steve's room exceeded all of his expectations. His window opened onto a stunning view of the city skyline and he often slept with the window open so the sounds could drift up from the streets, a comforting sound for a Brooklynite. The peace afforded him from this small corner of the palace helped him relax. He began to really process the magnitude of the fallout that Zemo created, letting the emotions roll over him in waves that left him sad, angry, frustrated, hopeless, relieved, and hopeful all at once. Maybe he couldn't rely on Tony, but when he thought about what he did have in his place, things didn't seem so bad. After all, Sam, Natasha, and Wanda were already working out new missions to run while they waited for him in Warsaw, he had a strong new ally in T'Challa, and at long last he fulfilled his mission of tracking down and saving Bucky. Things weren't ideal, but they could certainly be worse.

In Wakanda the days felt longer, punctuated with blazing sunrises and sunsets that bathed the world in glorious ruby red light. Steve enjoyed the heat that pressed in on all sides along with the feeling in his lungs when he inhaled the pristine air. Wakanda was a marvel of technology and engineering on every level, from the planning of the city, to the palace itself, to the unbelievable environmental quality-Steve knew that the world would soon be benefitting enormously from T'Challa's gutsy decision to share Wakanda's bounty.

When Steve first arrived he spent most of his time with the young king, hearing about his turbulent transition into power and the short-lived civil conflict that nearly spread beyond the country's borders. They talked about his vision for the country, in particular the announcement that he was bringing the true nature of Wakanda onto the global stage, something he'd done only two days before calling Steve back to discuss Bucky's future. But now that Bucky was awake, Steve split most of his time between his room and Shuri's lab where she'd started running an entire battery of tests on Bucky. Though Bucky was no stranger to being a lab rat, he seemed to appreciate Steve's presence and support.

Three days after Shuri pulled Bucky out of cryo, she was still examining every aspect of her patient she could. According to her, the more accurate of a picture she could get of Bucky's entire physical, mental, and emotional state before beginning the simulations the better. That way she could account for as many unknown variables as possible and make the procedure even safer. Steve only just understood her dumbed down explanation and so he did as she asked and went on faith, trusting the child prodigy to see Bucky through the life-changing process. For his part, Bucky was on his best behavior and only grumbled about the never-ending stream of scans, sensors, and needles when it was just Steve and him. Steve knew that Bucky was grateful beyond words for even the opportunity to rid himself of the trigger words that held him prisoner for far too long.

At the moment, however, Bucky wasn't happy with anyone. Shuri spent most of the afternoon running neurological test after test culminating in a series of scans to test the firing rate of his neurons, something that required gluing several electrodes to various points on Bucky's head. By the time Shuri armed him with a small bottle of acetone to dissolve the glue before he showered, Bucky's frown was so deep that he reminded Steve of the pictures of the unhappy cat that Natasha liked to text him at odd intervals. Bottle in hand, Bucky shuffled off to the hazmat shower, muttering what Steve suspected were Russian obscenities.

Shuri sat on a stool, one leg crossed over the other while she examined a hologram of Bucky's most recent brain scan. With a graceful turn of her wrist, she turned the scan to review a different angle. Her brows furrowed in concentration before smoothing over, a tiny smile playing at her lips.

Steve started to ask her what she was so pleased about but stopped when T'Challa swept into the room. At once Shuri was at his side, reaching for his elbow.

"Brother? What's wrong?"

Something certainly was off with T'Challa. His shoulders were rigid, pairing nicely with the serious line of his mouth. "I need to speak with Captain Rogers."

Steve rose to his feet. "Your majesty, what do you need?"

"I need you to tell me if you know who this is."

T'Challa touched one of the beads on his wrist. A hologram flashed to life. Steve's jaw dropped.

"That's Sadie Reid," he said, taking in the sight of her dark curls and sharp grey eyes set above a full red mouth. "She served as a nurse in the SSR during the war. We were good friends and she was engaged to Bucky."

"Do you know what happened to her after the war?"

A horrible feeling began bubbling in the pit of Steve's stomach. Swallowing hard, he took a step closer to the hologram and drummed up the information. Even as he started to speak he couldn't take his eyes off Sadie's picture; it had been a long time since he'd really looked at her. "She transferred to the Pacific theater. I read that after the war she started the International Humanitarian Aid Project. She was travelling from a work site in Hamburg to Ypres when she disappeared. Nobody else ever saw her again."

"Yes," T'Challa confirmed, pleased that Steve was up to date with his history. "That was until two weeks ago."

Very little surprised Steve anymore. But this particular grenade exploded right behind his knees, forcing him to reach back and grasp the back of his chair so he could sit down with a hard thud. "She's-_what_?"

"Alive, Captain Rogers."

T'Challa went on to give both Steve and Shuri a brief explanation of Sadie's recovery, ending with the press leak and confirmation that she was being kept at the Avengers compound in New York. For a long time after T'Challa finished Steve heard nothing else but the roar of blood in his ears threatening to drown out the voice in his head. This was news he never expected. Every history book and website that mentioned her went on to point out that she'd disappeared without a trace and no lead was ever found. She'd been declared dead; hell, Steve had even gone to visit her grave in Arlington during the short period he lived in Washington D.C. He thought her untimely death had just been another tragedy in a long line but as he sat with the news his mental gears creaked to life, turning the details over and over, generating one question.

What he really all that surprised?

People didn't just disappear. Everyone knew that Steve had been frozen in the Arctic; over the years multiple enterprising individuals attempted to find the wreck of the Valkyrie. When he started catching up with missed history he discovered a bevy of newspaper articles and even a few dissertations all devoted to the subject of Sadie's post-war life. Those authors presented multiple theories as to what happened the day she vanished, though now that he knew the full story none of them were even remotely close. In fact, the only thing any author got right was that Sadie was definitely alive when she disappeared. And now not only was she alive, but she was in New York, holed up at his former residence. Steve's impulsiveness, driven by his twisting heart, jumped far in front of his head.

"I've got to see her-if Ross has her in his custody he's got nothing good planned," Steve was already half out of his seat, a half-baked plan forming in his racing mind. A moment for logic was a moment wasted.

T'Challa held up a sharp hand just as Okoye slid half a step to her right, making to block Steve's exit. "I have been called to New York as a part of a panel of Accords nations. The goal of the panel is to determine the best course of action for Miss Reid."

A panel? Was he kidding?

"She's not a prisoner, she's a victim! Shouldn't it be Sadie's choice what happens to her?"

"Of course she should, but it is not that simple."

That drew Steve to a grinding halt. Complicated could mean many things but he was too experienced with this world to know better. His eyes narrowed, flashing from Okoye's own distrustful look to T'Challa who suddenly couldn't quite meet his eye.

"She's enhanced, isn't she?"

"Accelerated self-healing capabilities," T'Challa explained. Shuri stood up a little straighter, eyes shining with curiosity. "But the scientists studying her case haven't even scratched the surface. Her abilities could be much more advanced than that."

"You mean like me and Bucky."

Steve froze. The shocking nature of the news momentarily blocked all other thoughts out, but now he had a new elephant in the room to contend with. Sadie's emergence in the modern world didn't just alter things for him. After all, she'd been Bucky's fiancée, the love of his life. Earlier Steve hadn't been able to bring himself to ask Bucky if he remembered Sadie. What if he didn't? More importantly, what if he did? How was this news going to affect Bucky?

"We will not know without further testing," T'Challa guided him back to the subject at hand.

"Something we cannot achieve if you try to break her out," Okoye added with a scowl.

Steve absolutely hated admitting it, but Okoye was right.

"But, brother, she must come here," Shuri argued. "Imagine how we could advance our medical technology with her DNA."

Steve didn't know whether he should be offended that Shuri only thought of his one-time friend as a science project or relieved that he could count on her as an ally. Okoye's frown deepened and she started to argue, but T'Challa held up a hand once more.

"It is too soon to make such decisions. Captain Rogers, I would like for you to accompany us to New York. From there we can determine the best course of action."

It was a diplomatic answer if Steve ever heard one, but he realized that was the best he was going to get. With that settled, he shifted back to the other pressing matter. Glancing over his shoulder towards the other exit out of the lab, he thought of Bucky who was likely still washing the glue out of his hair, completely unaware of the situation.

"What about Bucky? What do we tell him?"

"Nothing," said Shuri in a firm voice. "In order for these simulations and the eventual deprogramming to be successful, Sergeant Barnes must be as emotionally stable as possible. Somehow I don't think telling him his ex is back from the dead is going to help with that."

"You know he's not stupid," Steve pointed out with a frown. "Eventually he'll figure out something is up."

"Not if you're all in New York and not in contact. Leave managing Sergeant Barnes to me. He'll be so busy with pre-program testing and preparation that he won't have time to notice anything else."

Somehow Steve doubted that was going to go as smoothly as Shuri predicted, but he didn't have the time to argue. Everything was happening fast and he needed to alert Sam and Nat as to his change in plans. So he left Bucky in Shuri's hands, promising that he'd be back soon and wouldn't miss the deprogramming. With any luck, he'd be back with a big surprise in tow.

**A/N: Slowly but surely I'm moving all the pieces on the board. I'm also still getting into the groove with some of these characters so be kind. Next chapter picks up where we leave off. **

**Anyway, loved it? Like it? Think that Rhodey and Sadie's growing friendship is basically the best thing ever? Looking forward to alllll of the shit Shuri is going to give Bucky? I'd love to know your thoughts! Much love - Kappa**


	5. With A Little Help From My Friends

**A/N: A regular update? Me? Inconceivable!**

**Y'all are amazing. Like. Seriously amazing. Thank you so much for the phenomenal reviews and all of the favorites and follows. Extra special thanks to Not Enough Answers for her always-helpful input and the magnificent Stencil Your Heart, beta-extraordinaire! The chapter title is by the Beatles.**

**For once there are...no warnings...holy crap.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything **_**Marvel**_** you see here. Sad day.**

**Chapter Five - With A Little Help From My Friends**

Steve hooked his finger over a curtain and pulled it back a fraction, peering out onto 2nd Avenue. From the fourth floor he could see passersby going about their daily business beneath the shade of the trees and cabs weaving between the endless multicolored barrage of sedans and SUVs. Every so often a bike messenger cropped up, performing an expert and dangerous dance with traffic. Each trek through the city blended together to create a unique rhythm that he couldn't find anywhere else. There was a flow to the goings on, a song all its own that Steve knew by heart and picked back up every time he returned. New York City, for all its flaws, simply couldn't be replicated and no matter how many cities he visited, Steve loved it best.

"Captain Rogers? Perhaps standing at the window is not the best idea."

He tore his attention from a trio of uniformed school children tearing down the street. Nakia smiled from her post in the doorway of his room and when he gestured, she entered, high heels tapping lightly on the polished oak floor.

"Ever since the King announced the nature of Wakanda's secrecy and the introduction of its outreach programs, we have been the target of press photographers. I do not believe any of us want to explain why you were photographed in the Wakandan consulate."

Steve let the curtain fall, shielding him from the street once more. He nodded apologetically to her and, feeling unsure of what to do or say next, shoved his hands in his pockets. Glancing at his small bedroom, he took in the details of the hand-carved furniture and the shelves displaying several handmade vases and statues, all depicting pieces of Wakandan culture that Steve had yet to learn.

"It's a great place," he said of the consulate which, much like the rest of Wakanda, presented a humble facade only to contain a luxurious interior bolstered by technological advances many countries were only still dreaming about.

Nakia hazarded a smile, folding her hands in front of her and glancing around his room. More than once she opened her mouth to reply but the words on the tip of her tongue wouldn't quite come out, leading Steve to wonder if she was just as uncomfortable in the moment as he was. Steve only knew a little about Nakia, mostly what T'Challa told him when they boarded a jet to come to New York. She was the head of his outreach efforts, saddled with the Herculean task of orchestrating the daunting process of converting inner city buildings into community centers all aimed at serving the underserved. Up until T'Challa asked her to meet them in New York, she'd been working on her inaugural project in Oakland, wrestling with the city council over zoning issues that were taking far longer to iron out than expected. She seemed at home in her burnt orange sheath dress, shifting her weight from one foot to the other with unassuming ease, though Steve remembered T'Challa saying she spent years roaming from one place to another, helping as many people as she could. And now she was here, serving as one of T'Challa's trusted advisors.

Another moment of silence passed. Every time Steve tried to think of something to say to keep the conversation going he came up dry. Nakia's dark eyes flickered to him and she smiled, reading his discomfort.

"How long has it been since you've been back?"

Steve's eyebrows rose. "To New York?" Nakia nodded. "About three months ago. I drove in to meet a friend for dinner. I haven't been in this part of the city in a long time though. Never thought I'd end up here of all places."

"When was the last time you saw Miss Reid?"

Now there was an unintentionally loaded question if Steve ever heard one. The memory came to him as easily as so many other wartime events. Sometimes he swore he could still feel the stiffness in the elbows of his Class A jacket, smell the rain in the air and if he turned around, he would still be standing in the church after Bucky's funeral. Steve blinked and Sadie was there, sitting ramrod straight, bearing the same stoic expression she'd worn after she recovered from her breakdown. But when he blinked again the church dissolved and Sadie vanished though the ache of regret lingered.

"February 1945." He shoved his hands in his pockets and tried not to shuffle his feet like a toddler caught doing something naughty. Steve kept his eyes glued to the floor. Nakia raised an eyebrow, picking up on the caginess of Steve's response.

"I sense there's a story there."

Nakia certainly didn't have a problem cajoling him for personal details. Steve couldn't put a finger on why but he didn't mind the prospect of telling her more. He shoved his hands into his pockets and leaned against the wall a few feet away from her.

"It was right after Bucky's funeral. I'd just found out she was transferring to the Pacific front and—" he bowed his head "-we were both grieving and said things in the heat of the moment that I don't think either of us would have normally said. I know I wouldn't have."

"That was the last time you saw her?" Nakia's disbelief served as a nice complement to the old guilt worming its way back into the forefront of Steve's mind.

"I thought we'd have more time," he explained and bit back a sigh. Back then he thought he'd have all the time in the world. "After it happened I thought we both needed some time to move on and that after the war was over, we'd patch things up."

"But that never happened," Nakia surmised.

Steve nodded. "Now that I think about it, it's kind of a miracle any of us made it home, including Sadie. But she did and then this happened."

"At least you may have the opportunity to mend things."

That was hardly a consolation prize considering the high price they both had to pay to get it. The trials and tribulations of assimilating into a brand new world weren't a process that Steve would wish on anyone. All he really remembered about his first days out of the ice was feeling overwhelmed to the point of numbness; feeling nothing was better than having to contend with the fact that everything that felt like yesterday to him had occurred literal decades ago. Steve grieved the deaths of too many friends at once. He carried those losses with him and even years later, even after finding friends and purpose, he still felt like a man out of time, wandering from one crisis to the next to keep the passing time from feeling so utterly empty. That wasn't a reality he wanted for Sadie.

A soft knock on the door frame drew Steve and Nakia from their separate thoughts. Okoye met Nakia's eyes and nodded once, a silent announcement that T'Challa had returned from the Avengers compound with an invitation to join him. Her disapproving gaze fell on Steve for a fleeting heartbeat before she rounded on high heel and departed, back straight and full of more purpose than he'd ever seen in one individual.

T'Challa was waiting for them in a sitting room adorned with two sofas and several deep arm chairs. He stood when the trio entered. Nakia touched his elbow as she passed him to fix herself a drink, the only sign of their otherwise intensely private relationship. At first Steve didn't know what to do; he felt out of place among the Wakandan delegation, fully aware that he was likely going to ask a favor of the young king yet again.

"Is it really her?" Steve asked when nobody immediately leapt to speak.

"Yes," T'Challa confirmed, sinking back down into his seat. Nakia took a spot next to him, crystal lowball in hand. As he spoke he drew back his sleeve to reveal the beaded bracelet on his wrist. Within seconds a hologram of Shuri bloomed to life.

"What is she like, brother? Do the doctors know more about her enhancements? Is there any chance we can use her DNA to augment research into curing infectious diseases?"

"One question at a time," T'Challa commanded, silencing even his enthusiastic sister. "Unfortunately I did not have the opportunity to speak with Miss Reid. She was not present for the first part of our meetings and Tony Stark was careful to keep her from being cornered by any national delegations."

Steve nodded; that was a smart strategy, one he would have employed in Tony's shoes. He hated tangling with political figures as much as the next person and was suspicious of their motives. Sadie wasn't stupid by any means but she was in uncharted waters, possibly too overwhelmed by her new surroundings to be aware of those motives and how she might fit into them - for better and for worse. Keeping her cordoned off from the vultures wasn't just smart diplomacy, it was essential for Sadie's own preservation.

"But you saw her," Steve persisted in a low voice.

"Yes," T'Challa said and paused. "She is recovering from quite an ordeal."

He motioned to Okoye who drifted across the room to open a briefcase sitting atop one of the end tables. From within the depths she retrieved a blue folder, one which Steve recognized as a United Nations dossier. Bypassing T'Challa entirely, Okoye held out the folder to Steve, which he took with some trepidation. He flipped open the cover but immediately shut it, closing his eyes to try and get a grip on his faculties. The top picture threatened to send him spiralling into a miserable cycle of guilt, shame and grief, one feeding right into the other.

"Here," Nakia said softly, moving to sit next to him on his sofa. With gentle fingers she pried the dossier out of his hands and opened the front cover. Her eyes grew wide and flickered from the photograph of a comatose Sadie to T'Challa, then back and forth once more. "T'Challa, what happened to this poor girl?"

"Nothing good," T'Challa replied, a scowl tugging at his lips. "You will be relieved to hear she does look better already. Secretary Ross and Tony Stark might be holding her at the compound but they have assembled an excellent team of doctors to manage her recovery."

Shuri's hologram snorted. "Puh-lease, they've got nothing on what we can do here."

Steve appreciated Shuri's confidence but he didn't think any doctor on the planet could magically fix Sadie's ills. He hardly recognized her, body wrapped up tight in a thermal blanket so only her face and neck appeared, so gaunt and wasted she looked as though she'd aged fifty years in one go, literally starved of her youth and vitality. Nakia released a soft breath she'd been holding and began reviewing the notes. Steve's stomach sank with each bullet point.

"Backpackers found her in Romania?"

"Not far from where Sergeant Barnes was staying," T'Challa said, filling in a mental gap for Steve.

"You don't think he was looking for her—" Steve stopped himself, fighting a frown.

"That is what Secretary Ross believes and I am inclined to agree."

And really, the longer the thought marinated, the more Steve agreed too. "That idiot," he muttered. "Why didn't he tell me?"

"Did you ask whether he remembers her?" Shuri enquired, rocking forward in her chair.

Steve shook his head. "Everything happened so fast that there wasn't really time and even when there was, I couldn't bring myself to do it. I didn't want to reopen old wounds. But still—" his thoughts trailed off while he examined a photograph of the bunker and Sadie's ancient cryostasis tube.

"What's done is done, Captain Rogers. All that remains is what we can do moving forward."

Coming from anyone but T'Challa, Steve might have called his advice nothing more than fortune cookie wisdom but somehow the king made everything he said sound more authoritative. Slowly the dossier made its way back into Steve's hands. Some part of him registered that the conversation moved on without him but the information contained within the pages called to him, painting a picture that broke his heart. X-rays showing broken bones, healed scars, burn marks and other hallmarks of brutal conditions and all at the hands of the enemy he swore to eradicate. The consequences of his failure to completely destroy HYDRA before crashing the Valkyrie haunted him on a daily basis and now he had yet another monstrous outcome to contend with.

He didn't realize that his hands were shaking until a picture loosened itself from the dossier and fell to the floor. Nakia leaned over and retrieved it. When she flipped it over, Steve's heart leapt into his throat. Sadie's Army Nursing Corps personnel photograph was how he preferred to remember her, bright eyed and ready to take on the world.

"Captain Rogers?"

Steve realized then that all eyes were back on him. His brows drew together, complementing the deep stretching across his face. He drew a thumb over Sadie's picture. What wouldn't he give to have Sadie here with him now? He wondered if she was at all scared or if her iron constitution was managing to carry her through. If they were reunited, however, she wouldn't have to feel the need to put up walls. Steve could give her something he didn't have when he woke up - the benefit of perspective and experience when it came to acclimating to the new world. There wasn't anything he wouldn't give to hug her tightly and tell her everything was going to be okay. Blowing out a soft sigh, he met T'Challa's eye.

"I know I don't have the right to ask another favor of you."

Something akin to a smile flashed in T'Challa's eye. "I believe having Miss Reid as a personal guest in Wakanda would be beneficial to all parties involved. Wakanda is out in the open now but we still must earn the trust of other nations. Our borders have been closed for so long but accepting Miss Reid as our first official state guest may go a long way to instilling new trust."

"We also have the best scientists and most advanced laboratories in the world. If anyone should study Miss Reid's enhancements it should be us!" Shuri exclaimed. "Plus, I believe that if Sergeant Barnes remembers Miss Reid, given their history perhaps her presence may assist with his recovery process after I remove his trigger words."

Steve hadn't even considered that.

"Also, she has experience organizing an entire aid organization from the ground up. Your friend may have valuable insight for how to deal with stubborn politicians and city council members," Nakia added, looking sideways to T'Challa as she spoke. "That should be more than enough to convince the council that inviting her to stay is a wise move."

Steve blinked. He hadn't considered the Wakandan council's role in Sadie's fate either. A knot started to form in his stomach. There were so many gears that had to turn just the right way; was it too much to hope that things would finally work out for once? T'Challa, however, did not seem as concerned as Steve.

"I am not worried about the council. The research opportunities alone should be enough to persuade them. Sadie Reid must come to Wakanda. The bigger issue is how to get her there."

"About that—" Shuri turned away from them, snatching up a tablet from a counter. "I took the liberty of searching the Accords for any useful loopholes and I think I've found one. Although the Accords panel has the right to require Miss Reid to submit herself for an evaluation of her enhancements, there is no provision that requires she has to stay in her country of origin for evaluation. From what I can tell, as long as Miss Reid is not under arrest then she is free to choose where she goes for that evaluation since certain signing countries are not as well equipped as others. As long as Sadie is aware of this then all you need to do is convince her that Wakanda is the best place to go."

"If she even knows we exist," Okoye muttered under her breath.

"She would be in a quiet place, where the press cannot follow her," Nakia pointed out.

Steve nodded. "Or Secretary Ross."

T'Challa pressed the tips of his fingers together. He said nothing for a moment, chewing over these options. "But," he said slowly, still forming his thought even as he started to speak. "If she knew that I could reunite her with both Sergeant Barnes and you..."

"Then she'd come in a heartbeat, no doubt in my mind," Steve assured him. The answer to the conundrum came to him in a flash. "We used to have code words in the field. A call and response for when we got separated or were meeting up on certain maneuvers. For the safety of the unit we never told anyone else the words. I bet you anything if you use one of those words she'll know where you got it from."

"Oh, that could work!" Shuri announced. "It's simple and you won't risk anyone overhearing anything they should not."

"All you would need to do is find a moment to speak with her alone and we can give you that," Nakia looked at Okoye as she spoke.

"Of course," though Okoye sounded far from thrilled.

T'Challa clapped his hands together, bringing the conversation to an end. "That settles it then. We have a plan."

X X X

The morning after her first round of meetings with the United Nations, Sadie woke early to take a few moments alone to herself before the wolves descended once more. She retreated from the quiet indoors to the large balcony overlooking the Husdon. Beams of watery morning sunshine caught the water below, shattering over the surface like millions of gems, flanked by the emerald trees that swayed with the warm breeze ruffling her loose curls. Admiring the view, unobstructed by buildings and powerlines, Sadie could pretend she was catching an early morning glimpse of any of the half dozen rivers she saw during her time in Europe, or even the Arkansas River as it wound past Little Rock. There wasn't anything she wouldn't give to turn around and see a field hospital tent or a small riverside town brimming with local color as opposed to the harsh lines and cold exterior of the compound.

"You look like you'd rather jump instead of just admire the view."

She didn't look back to greet Tony; instead, a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. She waited until he joined her at the railing.

"Actually, I was just thinking about a mission we ran in France, about a month after the Normandy landings. We were dispatched to help British and Canadian infantry take Caen. Steve led a risky combat jump behind enemy lines in order to take out a panzer division while the aide team stayed right behind the front line to function as an aid station. After the Brits and Canadians liberated the town, we were due to rendezvous in order to ship back to London. We caught a ride on a couple of Churchills and were rolling across a bridge when across the way I spotted Fallsworth, Dernier, Morita, and Gabe all sitting on the canal wall singing at the top of their lungs with a bunch of British boys." Even now Sadie could feel the rumble of the tank beneath her, producing a steady roar that rang in her ears for a long time after. But the sight of her boys with their arms slung over the shoulders of the survivors warmed her heart and she let loose a small laugh. "Gabe and Morita caught sight of us and, like the idiots they were, sprang up to wave us over. And they'd all been drinking wine they looted from a bombed out shop, right? Dernier gets up, slips and splash!" Sadie exclaimed through her laughter. "They all go right into the canal; looked like drowned rats after we managed to fish them all out. But wouldn't you know they just kept on singing?"

Tony hazarded a small smile. "Sounds about right."

"Did you meet any of them?" Sadie asked, her curiosity for another morsel of information about her long-gone friends getting the better of her.

"A few times over the years. My dad liked to get them all together when he had the time to relive the glory days."

"The glory days," she said on a hollow laugh. "Is that what people are calling the war now?"

"Among other things. Why, it wasn't like everyone describes it in movies and TV? The last great, golden generation and all that?" Tony asked, sarcasm dripping off every word.

Sadie shot him a sideways glare. "I think you already know the answer to that. But no, it wasn't like that. Not for me, at least."

"That's a refreshing take. Though you shouldn't let your supporters hear you say that."

"Supporters?"

"Oh, you didn't hear? An entire group of surviving vets and families of the guys you helped save are currently protesting for your release. There's footage on every major news network of a bunch of guys out in front of the white house in wheelchairs holding signs. I think I even saw a few with posters taped to the front of their walkers."

Sadie didn't know why, but the thought made her want to cry. In her forced isolation she hadn't had to give much thought to the consequences of time and how the continual march of the decades would age her one-time contemporaries. How strange would it be to turn on the news only to discover the very men she'd treated were now as wrinkled and white as she herself should have been? To her, the soldiers she treated were immortal, forever young in part because so many of them died that way. The notion that time and age would ravage their once-strong bodies set her on edge and reminded her that by sheer virtue of the years passing the number of veterans continued to dwindle and all of the men she served with were long gone. She sucked in a sharp breath that hurt her lungs.

Tony brought her back by giving her shoulder a couple of light pats in a pathetic attempt at sympathy. "They're not wrong, you know. And it's not just guys from then. Vets and military personnel from every generation are picketing - guys who went to Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, even Iraq. They're all calling your detainment shameful because you're an American hero-heroine, I guess."

"Don't call me that," she said, far sharper than she intended.

Tony's eyebrows flew up in the face of her sour candor. It wasn't the first time Sadie heard the word applied to her and she supposed it wouldn't be the last, though she hated it now just as much as she did then. Squeezing her eyes shut tightly, she tried to fight the strong wave of mixed emotions that surged up from the pit of her stomach, washing loose some of the worst thoughts from the darkest place in her mind.

The deluge swept her out of the moment, carrying her back to the most desperate moments of her life. She felt broken all over again and helpless as she often did both during and after the war. A filmstrip of images chugged to life in the back of her mind, bringing with it the sensations that were ingrained in her now. Her heart pounded harder in her chest, pulsing throughout her entire body and when she inhaled deeply she swore she smelled smoke, burnt flesh and the aftermath of infections too far gone. Clenching her hands, she half expected small cracks to open up, skin dried out after washing her hands too many times or working in the freezing cold. She could hear the rumbling of mortars and the roar of tanks that rattled the earth beneath her boots, stirring up a fear that threatened to undo her.

"Toto?"

Sadie heard Tony but couldn't focus on him. She was a thousand miles away.

"You can feel it, you know," she said in a dangerously soft voice. "The moment a man's life leaves his body. I can't tell you how many times I got to a patient only to realize all I could do was give him morphine and hold his hand until he passed. Sometimes I'd catch myself thinking that they were the lucky ones. Their deaths were easy and painless in comparison. I helped save so many lives but all I really did was send boys home to a prolonged death. How many of them went back with ghosts and addictions they would never shake? I saved the lives of men only to doom them to disabilities they would never conquer. Hospitals treated wounds of the body but not the mind; we sent broken soldiers home with no tools to cope with post-war life. All I really did was patch bullet holes with bandaids and that's nothing compared to the mess we left behind."

She pushed her fingers through her curls with a trembling hand. When she withdrew it she examined the scars there, taking her back to bombs ripping apart the 80th field hospital. There she'd undergone the fruitless exercise of moving patients beneath flimsy cots only to later pick her way through their scattered body parts, searching for survivors buried in the debris. Her body locked up under the influence of her paralyzing fear, the same fear that sooner or later claimed the hearts of even the stoutest soldiers when faced with the prospect of death.

"It feels like it was just yesterday," she said, sounding as far away as she felt. "It's seventy years later and nothing's changed. Everybody only ever wants to talk about the good we did and the fact that we won. Nobody wants to talk about the things we left behind or the nightmares we carried home. You can call me whatever you want, Tony, except a hero. After everything I saw and did I am anything but."

For a moment neither she nor Tony so much as moved or even said a word. As the seconds ticked by her heart began to slow, bringing her down from the height of her triggered emotions and back into herself. Tony took his own time to process her speech and just when Sadie thought she would need to apologize for her brutal tone, he let out a low whistle.

"And here I thought _I_ was jaded," he quipped and tilted his head towards her. "But hats off to you, Nurse, you've got me beat by a long shot."

Sadie opened her mouth to apologize and then argue but Tony shook his head.

"Don't apologize. After spending my whole damn life having to live up to all the guys from your generation who my dad put on a pedestal, you're a regular breath of fresh air."

Whatever Sadie imagined Tony would do or say in reaction to her vitriol, that wasn't it. And yet she couldn't help but feel as though she and Tony understood and respected each other a little more now. Maybe they didn't see eye-to-eye when it came to Steve and Bucky but as Sadie met Tony's gaze head on, she also met him in a silent understanding. They weren't what the other expected in so many ways, many of them for the better.

"I don't know how to be any other way," she said at last and Tony shrugged his shoulders.

"Then don't. But don't look a gift horse in the mouth - your fan club might have the words wrong but they're making a spectacle in the best way. Besides, they're putting Ross through PR hell and it's making for the most fun I've had in weeks."

Sadie rolled her eyes. "I think Rhodey's right, Tony. You need to get out more."

"You've got no room to talk," he countered.

"That's because I have nowhere to go."

"Ah, yeah, you've got me there," he conceded. "Though I don't think that's entirely true. Rumor has it a handful of countries are going to make you offers to relocate as a state guest while you undergo evaluations for your enhancements and in the meantime, you can start learning about the wider world."

Her eyebrow rose. "I'm not staying here?"

"You can. I'll even spring for a few field trips. I know Rhodey told you about the loophole he found in the Accords. You're not being charged with any crime—"

"-Because I never committed one," she groused.

"So," he continued talking over her, "it's really up to you whether you want to stay or take up another government's offer."

Sadie frowned. She never anticipated having choices.

"Why would any country want to do that?"

"Because you're the new big thing. Face it, Toto, you're a hot commodity and the country that can answer the questions about your enhancements first is also first in line to take advantage of them. Plus, you're going to bring a wave of good press with you wherever you go and that doesn't hurt either."

She pinched the bridge of her nose. "I take back what I said a minute ago. You also can't ever call me a hot commodity again."

Tony made a face and nodded. "That's fair, felt weird saying it to begin with. Bottom line's still the same though - you're the popular kid and everyone wants you to sit at their table."

Sadie identified a litany of problems with this news. Ever since learning about her new abilities, she'd been torn between wanting to know more and wanting to pretend she was just as normal as she'd ever been. The prospect of submitting herself to more tests and living her foreseeable future under a microscope was about as appealing as enduring boot camp again. She'd hardly had a moment to herself to make heads or tails of these abilities and the thought of any nation's government using the results of her testing to its own advantage made her skin crawl. What horrible things could be extracted from research into her abilities? And, more importantly, shouldn't the fruits of her enhancements be her own? Shouldn't she decide how and for what purpose they were used?

That was nothing to say of doing all of this with cameras pointed in her direction. Even during the war, she hated it when the press came to tour the SSR hospital or on the rare occasions a photographer was granted a pass to follow the unit into the field. Sadie didn't mind having her picture taken but she loathed being used as a poster girl for just about anything. Already she'd seen pictures of herself in a couple history books. Being an object of historical fixation was bad enough but having to face reporters, handle questions she couldn't answer, and allow her life to become a public spectacle horrified her on so many levels her stomach turned in a knot just thinking about it.

"If those are the terms on the table then I think I'd rather just find a cave and live in it, thanks," she groused, much to Tony's amusement.

"I'm sure that can be arranged. Can't say much for the cable signal or wifi though."

Her brows snapped together. "Wifi?"

"Oh God, it's like talking to an infant," he muttered and jerked his head toward the doors. "C'mon, I'll try and cover the basics over breakfast. I'm pretty sure the nutritionist has another standout meal lined up for you." When Sadie didn't immediately leave the railing, Tony stopped and turned back to her. "Look, I know this is one of those situations where I'm supposed to tell you everything's gonna be okay and you smile and nod and this all gets wrapped up with a nice bow but we both know that's bullshit. Instead I'm just gonna remind you that at the end of the day-no matter how much Ross hates it-you do get a choice in your fate and that's a whole hell of a lot more than most people get. So stop doing your best brooding Rogers impression so I don't have to eat breakfast alone."

Though not the speech she expected, Sadie thought perhaps it was the speech she needed. She left her post and came to his side, sweeping her loose curls behind her shoulders.

"Has anyone ever told you your bedside manner is God awful?"

Tony snorted and reached for the door. "Good thing you're the nurse and not me."

"Yeah," said Sadie, casting one final wistful glance towards the glorious morning. "Good thing."

X X X

T'Challa thought that finding a moment to speak with Sadie Reid alone would be easy. On the scale of difficult tasks he'd faced and conquered in the past two months, trying to isolate a single woman in order to exchange brief pleasantries and pass along a code word ranked somewhere with deciding what to wear on any given morning or brushing his teeth. After all, Sadie was just one person in a comparatively small grouping of people; how hard could it really be?

"This is next to impossible," Nakia muttered under her breath as she returned to his side after doing another lap of the large meeting space just outside of the auditorium. "Between every other politician here vying for her attention and your friends keeping guard, we will never get an opportunity"

"They are not my friends," T'Challa remarked of Tony Stark and James Rhodes. "Just acquaintances."

"Well, whatever they are to you, they are making this much more difficult than it should be."

T'Challa possessed no argument for that. He noticed the unusual protectiveness of both Stark and Rhodes from the start of the first round of meetings that morning. They'd both stayed close Sadie, policing the number of people who approached their curious companion. T'Challa assumed they were trying to minimize the amount of time the other delegates spent reiterating their proposals, attempting to tempt Sadie with the virtues of their respective home countries all while glancing over the more clever and sometimes downright alarming conditions of the invitation. And although Tony and Rhodey's protective practices were an extra roadblock for T'Challa, he did appreciate that Sadie had more than one ally among the vultures, though he wasn't entirely sure that Sadie needed much in the way of protection.

During the first, lengthy morning session of the U.N. panel, multiple leaders and representatives took their turns laying out semi-attractive options to the young woman as she sat flanked by Tony and Secretary Ross. Some countries offered the promise of luxurious accomodations and the chance to see the world while others focused on state-of-the-art technology and an evaluation process that would be both speedy and efficient. However, as men and women of every race, creed, and religion took their turn, T'Challa noticed one striking thing about Sadie Reid: she looked as unenthused by each proposal no matter what enticements were attached. He'd never seen a person so wholly unruffled by the bells and whistles attached to the offers or by the supposed importance of the people making those offers. At one point T'Challa was almost certain Sadie raised a delicate hand simply to cover a smirk when the delegates from France pointed out she could enjoy the beauties of Europe as she adjusted to the new world. Though T'Challa had yet to speak directly to Sadie, he was struck by her composure and the determined silence that made her almost impossible to read.

Of course the downside to her poker face was that T'Challa also had no idea how she truly recieved his invitation either. Without speaking to her directly, he couldn't know the impact of his proposal. Well, that wasn't entirely true, he thought as he caught the furtive eye of a Russian delegate. From the second T'Challa stood to address the entire panel, a ripple of surprise steadily built into outright show as he extended the warm invitation ofWakanda to her, just one more step in its international coming out effort. A flurry of whispers arose when he sat down though T'Challa focused only on Sadie who tilted her head, eyes flashing with mild curiosity. At the time he silently patted himself on the back for holding onto her undivided attention and for offering her one of two things that no other country could: no pesky members of the press could follow or harass her in Wakanda.

His other bargaining chip had to wait for the right time but it was even more powerful than the gift of privacy.

Okoye slipped through a narrow gap between two parties and came to his other side. Others might have interpreted her stony expression as one of concentration but T'Challa knew better. Though she'd yet to voice her opinion, he didn't need a crystal ball to know she wasn't happy with the situation. Wakanda opening itself up to the rest of the world was a big enough disruption to her life but taking in yet another foreigner bordered on a bridge too far. She crossed her arms over the black sheath dress she wore. When she addressed him, she did so in Xhosa.

"You will be pleased to know that next to Miss Reid, you are the most popular subject. Everyone thinks you have an ulterior motive."

"Of course I have an ulterior motive. Everyone here does," he also replied in Xhosa in an effort to keep their conversation private.

"Some are even questioning whether you are trying to exploit the girl in order to curry favor with the United States."

Disapproval pulled T'Challa's lips into a tight line. "I do not need to use Miss Reid as collateral in a negotiation. Our technology speaks for itself. Besides, there are more important reasons to bring her to Wakanda than just making friends."

Okoye's fingertips dug a little deeper into her upper arms. "It could be dangerous and you are already walking a fine line by having him staying in Shuri's lab."

They'd dug down to the root of Okoye's problem. T'Challa, however, remained undaunted and through it all maintained that he'd made the right decision to grant Bucky asylum.

"By 'him,' do you mean a victim in need of help that only we can provide?"

Okoye's shoulders went rigid. She bowed her head in deference. She'd always had the freedom to be frank with T'Challa but now that he was king there were new lines that not even she could cross. Sometimes T'Challa hated the new boundaries that came with being king but they were unavoidable. At the end of the day, love or hate his decisions, Okoye was charged with protecting and serving the king and openly questioning his judgement could lead them both down a slippery slope. Fortunately Okoye was a fast learner and wasn't plagued with thin skin. Satisfied that they were back on the same page, he nodded once so she would ease up.

"You do not have to like it, Okoye," he observed, casting her a sideways glance that she met. "But there is greater danger in Miss Reid going anywhere but Wakanda."

"Of course, my King," she murmured and T'Challa almost believed her. But he didn't have time to ruminate on their conflicting opinions. Already she'd moved back onto her objective to help him secure even a minute alone with Sadie Reid. "She is staring at you."

Okoye tipped her head toward the sofa where Sadie sat with Rhodey, picking at a plate of food in her lap. There was no smooth way to confirm this observation. Trying for a furtive gaze, T'Challa discovered that sure enough Sadie's piercing grey gaze beheld him. An inquisitive air surrounded her, parting her pale lips and drawing her dark eyebrows closer together, forming a little line between them. T'Challa regarded her curiosity as a good thing; he could capitalize on the unknown factor surrounding Wakanda and her continued interest. As long as she didn't write him off, he considered his chances for convincing her to accept his invitation strong. After all, he didn't have a backup plan and had no clue how he would stop Captain Rogers from seeking his long lost friend if she went anywhere else. The potential consequences of that outcome were dizzying. And so he took another risk and met her gaze head on. The corner of his mouth rose a tiny bit when her eyebrows drew higher up her forehead. Just before he broke their stare he offered her a cordial nod and turned away.

"I am going to get something to drink," he announced to Okoye and Nakia's surprise.

"What?" Nakia echoed after him when he retreated to the far side of the room where a long table stood along one wall, laden with a dozen different beverage options. T'Challa took his time preparing a cup of coffee, selecting his white cup with care and then debating between the three different roasts before landing on the dark blend.

Out of the corner of his eye, a figure came into his periphery.

"Excuse me," a warm feminine voice interrupted him. "Your majesty."

T'Challa had never heard an accent like Sadie Reid's. Her voice was slow and almost syrupy as she tugged on the vowels. But upon his first up close inspection he decided the accent suited her well, softening her sharp angles and tempering the fierce light burning in her blazing eyes.

Before she could reach across him, T'Challa retrieved a coffee cup and turned it over, holding it out to her by the small handle. "Here you are, Miss Reid."

Sadie exchanged the cup for a handshake and she surprised T'Challa with the firmness of her grip despite how delicate her bony hand felt in his. "It's a pleasure to meet you and a first. I can't say I've ever met royalty before."

"A first of many for you these days," he surmised.

When she smiled, the corners of her eyes crinkled. "Now what gave you that impression, your majesty?"

T'Challa couldn't help himself - he smiled in return. Hearing her joke about her circumstances put him at immediate ease. There were so many unknowns about Sadie Reid and about taking her in but at least he didn't have to worry about a defect in her character or countenance. Now that they were talking one-on-one he was pleasantly surprised to find that her unenthused demeanor was reserved for the masses, a mask to hide the myriad of emotions he was certain she was still working through. In person, however, Sadie was far warmer than he anticipated.

She went about her business, selecting the decaffeinated option for her coffee. T'Challa offered her the cream which she took, dropping just a splash into the dark liquid. While she stirred her coffee she considered the cream as it swirled around the edges of the cup before dispersing.

"I was surprised to hear that Wakanda is interested in hosting me. I only remember seeing Wakanda on globes in classrooms and then later on tactical maps."

T'Challa was surprised that she'd heard of Wakanda at all. But he chose a different detail embedded in her speech to capitalize on.

"You were in Africa?" He was surprised he didn't know that detail; T'Challa thought he'd covered all of the highlights of Sadie's service record on the flight from Wakanda to New York.

A small, knowing smile pulled at her pale lips. "Only briefly. My troopship from Brooklyn docked in Tunisia. We were there long enough to complete field training exercises before moving on to Sicily. I think I would have enjoyed spending more time there, however."

"Less fighting?" T'Challa enquired, genuinely curious.

"Fewer cases of malaria in the desert," she quipped in a deadpan voice. T'Challa couldn't help it; he ducked his head to keep any eagle-eyed watchers in the room from seeing his light chuckle. But Sadie heard it and let out a little laugh to mirror his own. When they both recovered, she sipped her coffee and regarded him over the top of her mug before switching topics once more. "I did think your proposal was interesting. Can you really keep me out of the public eye?"

"While you're in Wakanda? Yes. Although we have opened our borders to share our technology with the rest of the world, we have not opened up to free travel. You would have as much privacy as you desire, Miss Reid."

"And what do you get out of it?"

T'Challa didn't expect her to be so direct but he was glad she was; he never had any patience for people who played games. He'd come out here with a single mission and thus far Sadie was making it far easier than he anticipated. "Our scientists have the most advanced medical research laboratories in the world. It is my hope that we can isolate the advanced healing properties of your genetic code and use them to advance our research into cures for currently incurable diseases."

"To be disseminated how?"

"Not for profit, if that is what you are implying."

They held each other in steady estimation. Sadie's shrewd eyes narrowed a fraction before she relaxed and the corners crinkled to match her pleased nod. "It was. Although you're not the first to make that offer to me."

"But I am the most likely to deliver on it," T'Challa allowed just the tiniest sliver of his supreme confidence to show.

Out of the corner of his eye Nakia passed by, tipping her head toward one side of the room. T'Challa followed the line and frowned; Tony Stark was making his way toward them. There was no more time to waste with pleasantries. Reaching out, he touched Sadie's elbow. She started in response but didn't immediately pull away which T'Challa took as a sign to press on.

"Miss Reid, it is my sincere hope that you accept my offer, though I know there is little else I can say to convince you except…" he paused, took a breath and prayed to his ancestors that Steve wasn't leading him down a dead end. "Stars."

The air between them stilled. T'Challa couldn't even feel the beat of his own heart while he waited for the payout of his gamble. Tony was closer than ever, waylaid briefly by Nakia but she couldn't hold his attention for too much longer. The realization came over Sadie slowly as her lips parted in soft surprise and her eyebrows rose to accommodate her wide gaze. She placed a trembling hand over his at her elbow.

"Stripes." Her voice barely carried above a whisper. T'Challa's shoulders visibly sank in relief. He nodded once, not daring to say a word that could be overheard and misinterpreted. The hand holding his went to her chest, coming to rest over her heart. "Are—" she could barely croak the words out. "Are they?"

T'Challa decided it was worth taking one final risk. He nodded once more, stepping back just as Tony arrived in his peripheral vision.

"Toto, the Secretary wants a word." Tony planted a hand between her shoulder blades in order to steer her away from T'Challa and to prevent any other world leader or delegate from sweeping in to monopolize her time. He afforded T'Challa a deferential bow of his head. "Your majesty."

But T'Challa only cared about Sadie, the curious and unusual creature at the center of all of this chaos. "It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Reid."

"You as well, your majesty," she said in a stunned, hollow voice. "Quite the pleasure."

And with that Tony led her away to where Secretary Ross waited, arms crossed over his chest and a frown darkening his face. T'Challa realized then that his closer interaction with Sadie had not gone unseen. There was nothing he could do about that now and he had to rely on nothing more than blind faith that Sadie would make the right choice. Nakia and Okoye joined him. T'Challa did not see Sadie sink into a chair that Secretary Ross directed her to in order to take one final beat to process the news.

Okoye found her voice first.

"Do you think it worked?" She asked in Xhosa.

The spark of his confidence returned in full force. Antics of other people and dramatics aside, T'Challa felt in his heart that it was a done deal.

"Yes, I believe it did."

X X X

Two afternoons after Sadie's fated meeting with King T'Challa of Wakanda, she watched the elevator doors open to reveal the spacious foyer of the main compound building. She'd only been through the foyer a couple of times during her tenure on the trip to and from the medical wing. Floor-to-ceiling windows opened onto the semi-circle drive that split off from the main road. A thrill batted around the knot of anxiety in her stomach. In just a few minutes she would be on that road, speeding away from the compound and destined for yet another great unknown. All the previous night and that morning she'd tried to stop the small war raging in her body between the excitement she felt at finally seeing the outside world and the urge to throw up owing to the incredible amount of nerves coursing her system.

Now she stood alone, on the other side of the foyer from Secretary Ross who had what Tony called a smart phone glued to his ear. Sadie still didn't understand the fascinating mechanics of how people could use phones without cords much less phones that tiny but, like many things in this new world, she let it go with the hope that one day she'd figure it out. Besides, she had more important and exciting things to worry about than how cellular phones worked.

For what felt like the tenth time in the past two minutes she smoothed out her royal blue dress and patted the neat chignon at the nape of her neck. Sadie still hated the way the dress didn't quite fit but it was the nicest of the four gifted to her by Pepper and she thought the color suited her well. Vanity combined with the deep desire to impress her new hosts drove Sadie to spend more time than normal on her appearance, doing her best with her limited tools to fashion her hair into a becoming style. She'd been pleasantly surprised to discover that weakness no longer caused her hands to tremble which allowed her to properly apply her makeup, bringing the black eyeliner to perfect small wingtips and covering the scar above her eyebrow. In fact, as she'd stood before her mirror examining her reflection, she thought she looked better than she had since waking up, as close to her old self as she could get. Sadie only hoped that her efforts would help put her hosts further at ease and facilitate a smooth beginning.

Already her sole bag sat by the door, just another parting gift from Tony. He wouldn't hear of her protests and pointed out that it was either she take the small suitcase or he would go rustle up a trash bag from the kitchen. His sarcastic quip not only set them back at ease but further highlighted that Sadie had nothing to her name except for the contents of the suitcase. A frown played at her lips and she looked away from the suitcase and drew closer to the windows where she could see across a narrow breezeway into another room.

Her brows rose in surprise. Sadie checked over her shoulder to ensure that Ross remained engrossed in his personal conversation. Satisfied that he wasn't going to notice her, she slipped out the door and hastened across the drive.

"And here I thought you weren't going to say goodbye," Rhodey said with a grin when she entered the room.

A voice in Sadie's head told her she was supposed to respond and yet she stood stone still and utterly silent. Shock sent every last thought tumbling out of her mind to shatter on the floor all around her flat shoes. Rhodey's grin morphed into mild concern before clearing in understanding. He glanced down at the metallic frame supporting his body weight.

"How marvellous," she breathed, watching wide-eyed as he took one shakey step and then another.

"It's an early prototype and I'm still trying to get the hang of it."

Rhodey grasped the parallel rails on either side of him and attempted another series of tiny steps that brought him closer to her.

"How does it work? Does it move for you?"

Sadie drew closer to inspect the joints on the frame along with the connections to the brace that supported Rhodey's back and kept him upright. Far from irritated by her curiosity, Rhodey demonstrated the movement for her once more.

"There are sensors embedded in the brace that pick up on minute electrical signals and micro-muscle movements," he explained, pointing to various points on the frame. "Those signals then tell the frame to move." He tilted his head to the side and scowled. "Or, at least that's how I think it works. I know Tony said something along those lines. He's hoping I'll be able to transition into this so I'm not stuck in the chair all the time."

"That's wonderful!"

"Yeah, if I ever get the hang of it," Rhodey muttered. "Everytime I think I've got it Tony messes with the programming or brings a totally new frame and I have to start over. Still no cup holder though," he lamented.

Although Sadie couldn't claim to know Rhodey particularly well, there were certain aspects of his personality that she knew with absolute certainty. One of those was his indomitable determination. "I think you'll be just fine. You're the type that can do anything you put your mind to."

Rhodey stumbled on a step. Sadie rushed forward to help catch him, bracing part of his weight on her shoulders as he spun toward one of the parallel bars. He let out a small huff as his stomach hit the bar. Sweat beaded at his temples and a single droplet slid down toward his jaw. "When you say that, you sound like my mom."

"Well, in all fairness, I'm probably older than your mother."

Rhodey snorted in laughter. "You're probably right. There's something really wrong about that."

"There's a lot wrong about this whole situation but, I digress, it is what it is."

She helped maneuver Rhodey upright. Gripping his hands tightly, she turned him back to face toward the front of the room. With her added support he took another shaky step and then another. They made slow progress all the way to the end of the parallel bars where Rhodey took a break, accepting the hand towel Sadie passed him to mop the sweat from his forehead. While he rested, he took a cursory look over his companion.

"So, you're sure about going?"

"To Wakanda?" Sadie asked and he nodded. She shrugged. A little nervous tingle continued to ping around her stomach. The bout of anxiety accompanied the questions she'd been asking herself for the past two days, since making her decision to accept King T'Challa's invitation. The most important of those questions was whether or not the king had been serious when he intimated that he knew where Bucky and Steve were. What if she was being had? Those reservations, however, weren't the type she could voice aloud. She simply had to go on blind faith that the only way T'Challa would know those code words was if either Bucky or Steve themselves told him. Instead of letting those concerns show, she painted a sunny smile across her face.

"I am. Having to learn my way through the world will be infinitely easier without the press breathing down my neck and I know there's only so much longer I can go on here before that happens. Besides, as much as I like you, I don't really want to be in a position where Secretary Ross can drop in whenever he wants."

"That's as good of a reason as any to get out of here," Rhodey agreed. "I was kind of surprised, though. I thought maybe you'd go to Europe."

Sadie shrugged. "I could have. The language barrier would be easier but let's be honest, I've already seen Europe."

Rhodey snorted. "I think Europe looks a little different now than it did in '45."

"I should hope so. But truly, I think I'm making the right decision. I know from experience that assimilating back into society is hard enough; I don't want to do it while the whole world is watching me."

A funny little silence passed between them and Sadie got the impression he was trying to see beyond the surface of her representations. She wouldn't blame him for believing her to have another motive, which begged the all-important question of what did T'Challa offer her that nobody else could? To fill the silence she retrieved his water bottle. Rhodey toyed with the cap though every few seconds his eyes flickered to her and back again.

"You said you know from experience that assimilating can be tough. I've been meaning to ask you but wasn't sure how-" Rhodey weighed his words, tilting the water bottle back and forth before landing on his question. "What was it like? Going home after everything you saw?"

Trying to sum up the whole of her homecoming experience into a few words felt impossible. An entire spectrum of emotions guided her through the homecoming process, from the uncertainty and thrill of boarding the troop ship bound for San Francisco to the sorrow she felt standing alone on the deck, watching the Golden Gate Bridge come into view. There was the joy of seeing old friends and reuniting with her family and the bliss of so many weddings and newborn babies intertwined with the echoing hollow in her chest that grief carved out. Sadie could still recall with perfect clarity all the nights she cried herself to sleep and the mornings she spent making futile promises to get better. An entire lifetime passed in those early months, putting Sadie through a different fire that tempered her most volatile emotions and forged her into something more steadfast and steady. But how could she possibly tell Rhodey all of those things?

A wistful smile never quite reached her eyes. "It was beautiful and sad. Whether I wanted it to or not, the world moved on without me. Sometimes it felt like I really never came home."

"Is that why you went back?"

"To Europe?" Rhodey nodded. "One of the reasons. I struggled at home and always felt like a stranger standing on the outside looking in at my own life."

"Yeah, I know the feeling."

Sadie understood now why he was asking her. They'd both undergone traumatic experiences that uprooted their entire lives and redefined their futures in new ways. This wasn't Sadie's first experience with adjusting to an entirely new reality and Rhodey was just beginning his journey. Despite their short acquaintance they'd connected, finding common ground in their respective tragedies and uncertain futures. Sadie didn't blame Rhodey for wanting confirmation that the days wouldn't always be so long, that he wouldn't always be staring down a road obscured by too many roadblocks and uncertainties. If Sadie could give him even a scintilla of hope then she would consider her brief tenure at the Avengers compound something of a success, or at the very least, worth the trouble she'd endured. Bridging the small gap that separated them, Sadie touched his shoulder and leaned over to press a kiss to his cheek.

"I'm certainly not the poster child for healthy coping but it does get better. One day you'll wake up and things won't feel quite as impossible as before and the next day it will be better and so on until one morning you wake up and you'll realize you've moved on."

"I've never been the most patient guy in the world."

"And unfortunately some things just take time."

Rhodey nodded. Lines formed at the corners of his eyes and mouth, betraying the worries that plagued him. "You know it's kind of a shame you're leaving. I was starting to get used to having someone else around."

"I'll be back," she promised, giving his forearm a gentle pat. "Secretary Ross has already made it clear he expects me to show my face every now and again and I suppose I can't begrudge him that."

"Good. I'm looking forward to watching you put that man in his place."

Sadie laughed. "I think you've done an excellent job of that on your own or am I mistaken that you're the sole reason I'm able to leave at all?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Rhodey said with a dramatic, evasive flair.

"I'm sure you don't. But either way, I wanted to thank you for being so welcoming. You made my first weeks infinitely more bearable."

Rhodey started to open his mouth but stopped when a sleek black car pulled to a halt in front of the doors. He tipped his chin up toward the car. "Looks like your ride is here."

King T'Challa and his advisor Nakia emerged from the back of the car. Sadie's stomach tied itself in a knot. Once more she said a little prayer to any god listening that she'd made the right decision. Rhodey touched her elbow to regain her attention. He gave her upper arm a gentle squeeze.

"Take care of yourself. I'm sure we'll run into each other soon."

"We will," she promised and started to walk away when Rhodey called out to her once more.

"And Sadie? If you see any old friends will you tell them I say 'hi'?"

Sadie smiled at him and shrugged her shoulders. "I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yeah, I bet you don't. Good luck in Wakanda, I'll see you soon."

"Bye, Rhodey."

She left Rhodey grinning at her retreating back for a moment before he returned to his work. When she stepped out it was to discover a party of four awaiting her. Tony had appeared from somewhere else in the compound. Already T'Challa's driver took it upon himself to load her lone bag in the trunk of the car. Sadie's anxious heart tripped over a beat when all four sets of eyes fell on her.

"Miss Reid, are you ready?" T'Challa asked and although he maintained his cool demeanor his companion, Nakia, smiled at her.

"I am, thank you, your majesty."

Secretary Ross went on to remind T'Challa of the expectations of the UN council, a series of onerous tasks including regular progress reports and the expectation that Sadie would venture out of Wakanda when invited to certain events. Why anyone would want to invite her to summits or state dinners was beyond Sadie but already she was anticipating Wakanda's first state dinner to be held in two months' time. While Ross continued to lay out the laundry list of demands, Tony took her aside. He held out a small brown paper bag by the handles.

"A going away present," he said, thrusting the bag into her grasp.

"Tony, you didn't have to-oh-"

"You're the only person on the planet who would be disappointed. That's a nice phone so don't drop it." From within the depths of the bag Sadie withdrew a white box that had what she assumed was a picture of the phone on the front of it. She lifted the lid and sure enough there the phone was, sitting in a little white cradle and looking as foreign to her as anything else.

"You know I don't know how to use this," she remarked, letting a little sliver of dryness sneak through.

"Someone'll teach you. I bet if you ask nicely, you can even get someone to teach you how to play _Angry Birds_." In the face of her exasperated expression he relented. "It's for if you need to get in touch with someone at the compound and don't want to go through Ross which, nobody would blame you for that."

The notion that Tony would want to maintain their connection changed her perspective on his perplexing gift. "Thank you, Tony. That's actually...quite sweet of you."

"I wouldn't go that far. But you're the first one-hundred year old popsicle that I can stand to be around so I'd hate to let that go."

Sadie held up a sharp finger. "I'm ninety-six and don't you forget it."

Tony chuckled. "I won't." He ushered her to the car where Nakia stood next to the open door. "See you around, Toto."

"Yeah, you too."

And with that she ducked into the car, sliding into the seat that T'Challa designated for her. Nakia joined her and shut the door, enclosing Sadie with two complete strangers. As the car pulled away she swallowed hard, fighting to push down the fear that threatened to seize her heart. There was no going back now. Whatever happened now was based on the merits of her decisions and as Sadie watched the compound grow smaller in the back window, she hoped she'd made the right choice.

"I'm glad you've decided to join us, Miss Reid. Are you ready to see what you've missed?"

Nakia's question contained a different layer of meaning that jumped out at Sadie. Her fears settled when she thought about the possibility of Steve and Bucky somewhere out there waiting for her. With that thought in mind she folded her hands in her lap and smiled at Nakia.

"Yes, I think I am."

X X X

The drive to the Wakandan embassy was a quiet affair. For Sadie's part there was simply too much to take in that she didn't want to waste a second on conversation. Thankfully her new companions understood this because T'Challa and Nakia both took to pointing out small odds and ends but otherwise left the wonder of discovery entirely up to Sadie. First it was the luxurious interior of the town car coupled with her sheer amazement at how quiet the engine ran. Sadie ran her fingers over the smooth leather seat and thought about all the time she spent in old Army-issued jeeps and troop trucks and she almost missed feeling every bump in the road.

However, the changes in automobiles were the least of Sadie's shocks. As the town car sped along the highway the Manhattan skyline slowly emerged into view. At first she couldn't tell the difference between the skyline she remembered but the larger the city grew, the more she could see the shocking changes. More skyscrapers reached toward the heavens and the old brick buildings she remembered were long gone. Towers made of shining glass reflected the late afternoon sun, man-made monoliths that soared over the Hudson.

"Good heavens," she whispered, more to herself than anyone else.

In the years after the war, Sadie spent a good deal of time in New York. While she worked to get IHAP off the ground the city was her base of operations and she spent countless hours with Howard hammering out details, bouncing from one upscale restaurant to the next. She'd ambled the streets with Rebecca, losing themselves while they talked about everything and nothing. Sadie certainly didn't know New York the way natives knew it but she remembered enough to know the skyline was nothing like it used to be and that the city that awaited her was an entirely different beast. A different energy radiated from the city even as the town car merged with traffic onto a bridge that carried them across the Hudson.

"We will only be in New York for two nights," T'Challa explained, momentarily drawing Sadie's attention from the eye-popping variety of cars clogging the road. "Then we will return directly to Wakanda. The head of our research division is eager to start her work with you."

"Her?" Sadie echoed.

"My sister, Shuri. She is quite...enthusiastic."

Nakia raised a hand to hide her smile. Sadie didn't know what to make of T'Challa's tentativeness but she couldn't deny her happiness upon hearing that a woman headed up an entire country's scientific research division.

"You will like Princess Shuri," Nakia assured her, misreading Sadie's silence for concern. "Everyone does."

Whatever Sadie wanted to say died on the tip of her tongue. The car exited the bridge and leapt into the thick of city traffic. Light and eye-watering color assaulted her from all sides. From between the other cars, Sadie caught glimpses of the foot traffic. She suddenly felt self-conscious about her simple dress. Styles of every cut and color filled up the street and Sadie caught the sight of more than one woman wearing jeans and pants that hugged their legs like a second skin. Skirts shorter than she'd ever seen interspersed with men wearing everything from sharp suits to plain white t-shirts. The only hats she saw were baseball caps and far from the prim and proper hairstyles of her time, she saw most women wore their hair down in flowing locks and Sadie had to do a double take when she saw a woman cut through the street sporting bright purple hair.

The people were added color to cars parked on the street in front of stores that never seemed to end. Sadie tried to catch the names but there was simply too much to take in. Glossy ads featuring rail-thin models took up entire windows while other stores took to using elaborate window displays or had enormous screens flashing lights so bright her eyes almost watered taking it all in.

"A little different than you remember?" T'Challa asked.

"Your majesty, that is the understatement of the century," Sadie breathed. "I don't recognize anything."

She did not see T'Challa and Nakia share a knowing, mildly amused look at her doe-eyed awe. Every time she blinked, Sadie expected to see the New York she left, doused in the muted colors of the time. All around her the city pulsed with life but it wasn't anything she understood. Sadie felt smaller and smaller the longer the car wove through the unimaginable traffic. She had a feeling that the city could swallow her up at any given moment, too big and too wild to be contained by any one person. Seeing how far the world had moved on without her threw Sadie's situation into sharp perspective. How on earth was she supposed to catch up to all of this progress?

Sadie didn't even realize that she'd fished her necklace out from beneath her dress until she was already twisting her father's wedding ring on her finger. Often she missed her father and thought with longing for his advice but she'd never wanted him so dearly before. What would he say if he could see her now? Even despite her extraordinary circumstances he would have some nugget of wisdom that could calm her restless soul and ease her concerns.

The one piece of her father's advice that she did have, however, returned to her now. Sadie often employed the simple tactic in stressful situations or just before waves of wounded soldiers descended upon the field hospital. Letting her eyes flutter shut she took a deep breath and silently counted to five, taking a breath between each number. She focused on the things she could control and on the fact that for now she was safe and shielded from the greater world. Nobody expected her to learn everything right away. There would be time to learn her way through this new life and with any luck she would make new friends who would help her navigate these unfamiliar waters.

"Miss Reid?" Nakia gently drew her back into awareness. "We are here."

Sadie wasn't prepared for the gaggle of people packed in front of a handsome four-story brick building. The swarm of photographers moved as one, swinging around to face the town car when it slid by. She winced and shied away from the camera bulbs that flashed in her direction. Muffled shouts sounded to Sadie like nothing more than garbled sounds but she could see the fervor on the faces of these people determined to get a glimpse of her of all people.

"Do not worry, the windows are treated with a tint that their cameras cannot pierce. Nobody can see us in here," T'Challa scowled at the reporters that watched the car pass by. He knocked on the partition and requested the driver take another lap around the block before circling to the backside of the building. "Fortunately we are prepared for situations such as these."

Sadie didn't ask what those preparations were. She was too gobsmacked by the sheer number of reporters.

"I can't believe all those people are out there because of me." Now more than ever she was grateful for the king's promise to keep her away from the world's prying eyes.

"Sooner or later you will have to face the press but I think it's wise to wait until you're fully prepared."

The car circled the block before turning off down a narrow alley that ran behind the embassy building. It passed through a small garage door and Sadie squeaked in surprise when the platform beneath the car started lowering, bringing them down below the building into a basement level. When the elevator came to a halt she allowed the driver to help her out of the car and into a brightly lit, immaculate garage. At Nakia's urging, Sadie left her things to the driver to manage and she followed T'Challa into another smaller elevator that travelled up one floor and opened into a handsome foyer.

Sadie wanted to examine everything in sight, from the exotic flowers spilling out of hand painted vases to the artwork hanging from the walls. Tribal masks hung next to intricate tapestries representing a multitude of cheerful colors. She was drawn to the figurines lined up on the entry table set beneath an ornate mirror. Even the rug beneath her feet displayed an appealing geometric pattern of knots interlacing together. The entire foyer painted a pleasant picture of her surroundings and welcomed her with the little personal touches that the cavernous, sterile Avengers compound simply lacked. She turned to compliment T'Challa but discovered he was waiting for her in front of a set of double doors.

A small smile played at his lips. "You must be overwhelmed by so many changes in such a short time," the young king explained, a diplomat if Sadie ever met one. "Perhaps you might feel more at ease if you were among familiar company?"

T'Challa opened the doors and the whole world ground to a screeching halt. Sadie, who up until that point had been drawing closer to the doors, stood statue still. While astonishment rooted her feet to the floor she could see through the doorway to where a man rose from his seat. Every cell in Sadie's body vibrated in response to the man's sandy hair swept away from his clear face, revealing a strong jaw and dark eyes that warmed over at the sight of her. His mouth parted in soft surprise as he too drank in the sight of his friend. She raised a shaking hand to cover her mouth even as the first tears sprang to her eyes.

All she knew was everything else melted away and at the same time came into sharp relief. Before Sadie felt as though she'd been going through the motions, believing that her mystifying time jump was real and yet still waiting to wake up from the bad dream. She'd spent the days longing for any real connection to her previous life, any thread that would tie her back down to earth and make everything well and truly real for her.

Staring at Steve Rogers for the first time since their fateful parting in 1945 finally proved to Sadie that this wasn't a dream.

"Finally," she breathed.

And then she was moving, taking strides toward Steve at the same time he moved toward her. They collided in an audible exhale of relief. Sadie's arms went around his neck as he engulfed her in a brotherly embrace. Steve was so zealous in his greeting that he lifted her clean off her feet. Both of Sadie's shoes slipped off her feet and fell to the floor. He cradled her head as she buried her face in his neck to hide the tears that poured out of her eyes now and to muffle the sound that worked free of her lungs, caught somewhere between a sob and a laugh.

"I can't believe it's really you." Steve's voice was the sweetest sound she'd heard in an age and had she been standing, she would have collapsed in a heap. He hugged her so tight her ribs creaked but Sadie didn't dare loosen up or let go lest he disappear.

The decades of separation fizzled into nothing. Somewhere in the back of her head Sadie's last words to him echoed but she brushed them aside. There would be plenty of time to revisit the past and make amends for their wrongs. For now it was everything just to cling to her friend as he pulled her up to the surface. Even though her chest was compressed against his so tight she could barely move, Sadie felt as though she could finally breathe.

When Steve eventually set her down he moved to take her hands, laughing with her as she struggled to step back into her low heels. The need to hold him in her gaze overcame her. Steve just beamed down at her as she framed one side of his face with a trembling hand. She'd never appreciated him more than she did in that moment, appearing stronger and more handsome than ever. He was the life preserver she'd been searching for and his mere presence served as a balm for the worst of her wounds. Shaking her head, she allowed her face to split into a broad, watery smile.

"I knew it. I knew it was you when King T'Challa used that old SSR code word. Only you would think to do that to get a message to me."

"I'm just glad you remembered," Steve replied. "You have no idea how good it is to see you."

The joy of their long overdue reunion couldn't be repressed. Sadie cast aside her usual restraint in exchange for stepping forward and embracing Steve once more. For a long time they stood that way, basking in the sheer relief that flowed between them at seeing a familiar face at last. She didn't even realize that she'd started crying again until Steve cradled her head against his shoulder and wore a comforting path on her shoulder with his thumb.

"It's okay," he promised. "You're safe here. Everything's going to be okay."

And for the first time since Sadie woke up in this brand new world she finally believed it.

**A/N: I'm not crying, you are. Next chapter picks up from here!**

**Loved it? Liked it? Sad to say goodbye to Rhodey and Tony for now? Super excited that Sadie and Steve are reunited? I'd love to know any and all of your thoughts! Much love - Kappa**


	6. Torn Souls

**A/N: Why I haven't updated can be summed up in two words: I'M PREGNANT! Yes, on purpose. Yes, I'm ecstatic. Yes, morning sickness is a lie - it's more like 'all day, I feel hungover without the benefit of the night before' sickness. No, I don't know how having a baby is going to change my already deplorable writing habits. No, I don't want to hear any laments about how this is going to further alter future updates. Also, for the handful of people who suggested that now that I'm quarantined like the rest of the world I have no excuse for not updating - I'm still lucky enough to be working from home 40+ hours a week, packing my house to move in a couple of months, preparing for my new arrival, and I'm also trying to spend as much quality one-on-one time with my husband before our lives change literally forever in a few short months. In short, pandemic or not, I have been a busy, busy, busy bee - Baby Kappa is due in late August and I don't expect my life to slow down any time soon!**

**That being said, thank you from the bottom of my wasted little heart for all of the follows, favorites, and reviews. Even in my dormant stretches I still check regularly and I truly appreciate all of your love! Extra thanks to the magnificent Stencil Your Heart for her beta services and for enabling and encouraging all of my ridiculous junk food pregnancy cravings!**

**Song title is from **_**The Pacific**_** OST and was a theme I listened to a lot while writing **_**Songbirds**_**.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own **_**Marvel**_**. **

**Chapter 6 - Torn Souls**

For the hours following their momentous reunion, Sadie refused to let Steve out of her sight. The little irrational voice that took control of her mind told her that if she even so much as blinked, Steve might disappear. Normally Sadie was quite adept at chasing away the worst of her overdramatic thoughts but this time she let her concerns stand. Seeing Steve after so many years and so many turbulent events was nothing short of a dream come true and she wasn't sure she could withstand the disappointment if the entire thing turned out to be a figment of her imagination. Fortunately for her, Steve appeared just as reticent to leave her side. Sadie wasn't sure if it was for her benefit or his; the way he basked in her company reminded her that he'd walked a long and lonely road up until this point, stranded in this era without a truly familiar face to lean on. Up until their falling out they'd always gotten on quite well but there was a new level to his brotherly affection, setting her both at ease and piquing her sensitive nerves.

Sadie knew there were many tough conversations in front of them and so many issues left to resolve. She allayed her concerns by telling herself that there wasn't any rush anymore. There were no pressing missions, no orders to follow, and no wars to fight. Steve wasn't beholden to Colonel Phillips' orders and Sadie's life wasn't tied to the hospital. Without the Third Reich breathing down their necks they could both breathe easier. One step at a time, she told herself every time a dozen questions sprang to the tip of her tongue, interspersed with multiple apologies and declarations of regret.

After they both came down from the emotional high of their reunion, Steve and Sadie opened the sitting room to King T'Challa and Nakia. Between her three companions, Sadie managed to fill in more of the gaps in her timeline. For over two hours the quartet talked. Steve gave Sadie the brief rundown of discovering Bucky was still alive and the subsequent search to find him. T'Challa added his own side of the story, complementing and in certain places contradicting Secretary Ross' version of events. Through the two men Sadie learned more about Bucky's experience at HYDRA's hands, about his turbulent journey to safety, the trigger words still embedded in his mind and the effort to remove those words. She listened with bated breath, asking as many questions as came to mind about the facts, doing her best to put everything into a coherent timeline. Nakia supplemented details here and there along with providing reassurances that Bucky was in the safest place possible for his recovery and that although Princess Shuri was young, she was the most qualified person on the planet to take on the delicate task of deprogramming Bucky's mind. Sadie managed to provide a few surprises herself and Steve ate up the information she gave about the goings-on at the compound and the current state of the Accords. She told them all about Rhodey's recovery, Ross' suspicions about her and Bucky's journals.

"So, he remembers you?" Steve asked.

Sadie nodded. "Maybe not the fine details but he remembers the broad brushstrokes. There were details about our history that he couldn't have read in any history book, things that only he and I would know. He remembers a lot about you, too. There were hints of stories I'd never heard before," she explained, feeding the hungry light in Steve's eyes.

"That is good news," Nakia observed, injecting a hopeful air into the serious tension hanging over the room. "Maybe your arrival to Wakanda will be doubly welcome."

Sadie could only hope that this observation was correct. T'Challa, however, latched onto a different, more troublesome detail.

"I don't think Secretary Ross will lose interest in you any time soon, Miss Reid."

"Please call me Sadie, your majesty," she said, even as a frown played at her lips. "You're absolutely right. Both Tony and Rhodey were convinced that Ross wants to use me to find you," she looked to Steve. "And Bucky."

Nobody had an immediate answer to the problem of Secretary Ross and his newfound obsession with Sadie. Their saving grace was that he couldn't drop in on Wakanda whenever he pleased and so for the time being, Sadie was shielded from his interference and so Steve and Bucky were safe too. Sadie also felt better when Steve expressed his total lack of concern about Ross. In his mind the Secretary was just a minor annoyance, one that he'd bested multiple times in recent history. The general consensus was that they would cross those bridges when they came to them.

Their conversation continued through dinner but afterward Nakia quietly guided T'Challa away in order to give the old friends some time to themselves. Sadie trailed after Steve back into the sitting room where he retreated to the bar cart. Turning back to her, he held up a bottle of whiskey in one hand and two lowballs in the other.

"There's a nice patio on the rooftop. How about some fresh air?"

The prospect of trading the stuffy atmosphere of the consulate for the early summer night was too tempting to pass up. She gestured toward the foyer. "Lead the way."

They climbed the stairs in comfortable silence. Sadie suspected that Steve moved slower than his normal pace to accommodate her weaker body. Though she held her own quite well, her heart was pounding by the time they reached the top and she took a beat to recover. Steve pushed the door open where the glorious night beckoned to them. Tall hedges tracked the perimeter of the roof, dotted with twinkling lights that cast a cheery glow on the gravel paths that cut through pristine flowers. A trellis stretched over a portion of the roof, decorated with climbing vines and more lights. In the center of the little oasis, a fountain stood. The water gurgled in a pleasant tune that helped drown out some of the din of the surrounding city.

"Well isn't this a little slice of heaven?" She mused, passing Steve as he held the door open for her.

A few deep chairs sat beneath the trellis and near the fountain. Steve pulled two closer together and hovered uncertainly until Sadie lowered herself into one, drawing her knees up to her chest. When he settled himself into the chair next to hers she shifted her body to better face him. The silence continued as he uncorked the whiskey bottle and poured a healthy measure into each glass. She accepted hers and perched it between her fingers, suddenly feeling unsure of herself.

The hours that followed their joyous reunion allowed an idle part of her mind to dredge up bitter regrets. Sadie was now acutely aware that the last time they'd seen each other was in the church after Bucky's funeral. They'd both been dressed in their Class A's, grief-stricken and too far gone to recognize how desperately they needed one another. The Steve sitting next to her looked normal to a comical degree, wearing a pair of blue jeans and a plain gray t-shirt. She'd only ever seen him out of uniform once. Yet, in spite of his modern clothes and styled hair he was still the Steve Rogers she remembered, albeit even more serious than before. Shifting her whiskey to one hand, she propped her chin up with the other.

"You look the same," she remarked softly. "But you're not."

Steve let out a little breathless chuckle. He sobered quickly and turned the full force of his gaze on her. His eyes roved her face, taking in the persistent dark circles beneath her eyes. The deep hollows beneath her cheeks produced a deep frown of his own. Lower he tracked the trail of devastation, over the sharp angle of her jaw, where the tendons of her neck stood out when she turned one way too far, and the wells above her collar bones bared by the cut of her dress. Sadie hated that this was how he had to see her because the pain her appearance brought him was plain as day on his face from the softness of his brows to the drawn quality of his frown.

"I wish I could say the same about you."

Sadie examined the thin hand wrapped around her lowball and fought a wry smile. "Give me a couple more square meals and I'll get there."

"Sadie," Steve's soft warning called out her poor attempt at humor. "If I'd known…you have to know if I'd known you were out there I wouldn't have stopped until I found you."

This was the Steve Rogers she remembered. Sadie recalled him dwelling over the tiniest details, tragedies big and small, reviewing the details ad nauseum, searching for any way he could have saved this life or stopped that bombing. He took Gutierrez's death especially hard and couldn't even make eye contact with her for days after helping rescue her from a bombed out basement in Belgium. She expected nothing less from Steve now. Of course he would blame himself for something so entirely out of his control, for a disappearance he didn't cause and for not doing something he didn't know to do in the first place. All Sadie could really do in the face of his self-imposed punishment was to try and assuage his guilt with her own understanding.

"I know," she promised in the same soothing voice she used for struggling patients. "Though I wouldn't have blamed you if—"

"Don't," he cut her off. Sadie ignored him, determined to hash out an issue long overdue.

"I'm sorry, Steve. The things I said that day were way over the line and I regretted all of it literally seconds after you left the church. That fight was one of my greatest regrets of the entire war and I hated that I never got the chance to make things right."

"There's nothing to apologize for."

Sadie shook her head, almost indignant in the face of his dismissal. "There is," she insisted. "I told you that I wished—" even now the words wouldn't come out "—please understand that what I said came from a truly horrible dark part of me and I'd never have said it if—"

"You weren't mourning the love of your life?" He suggested. Sadie swallowed hard but nodded. A river of relief washed from him directly into her when he bridged the gap to lay a warm hand on her forearm. "I know. After I left the church I wanted to turn around and apologize but I was just too proud. I always thought after the war ended we'd have time but then I went and crash-landed in the Arctic."

"And now here we are," she murmured.

"And here we are," he repeated. Sadie sipped her whiskey and tried not to cough when the burn hit the back of her throat; it had been far too long since her last drink. "I'm sorry, too. There's a lot about that time I wish I could take back. Not a day goes by that I don't regret not going back for Bucky."

"There's no way you could have known. And sitting here ruminating on what could have been will only drive both of us crazy."

"That's a lot easier said than done."

Sadie smiled into her whiskey. "I know. But if there's one thing I learned after the war it's that chasing ghosts is a good way to lose yourself. Regardless, everything is forgiven on my end."

"Mine too."

Another period of quiet settled over them. Sadie felt as though a two hundred pound weight had been lifted off her shoulders. Yet, even without the burden of Steve's lost friendship hanging about her neck Sadie staggered beneath the combined weight and pressure of too many other problems. While the whiskey burned down her throat and settled in her stomach, Sadie's thoughts returned to Bucky, the thread that tied them together. She was almost afraid to ask but had to all the same.

"How is he?"

Steve didn't meet her gaze. "Different," he said at once with such finality that Sadie's breath caught in her chest. "I think maybe some of the old Bucky is still in there but you need to prepare yourself, Sade. He's been through so much that I don't think he's ever really going to recover."

Though Sadie expected nothing less, the words still hurt. There was a specific version of Bucky who lived on in her mind. She wasn't sure how she was going to handle seeing a Bucky who didn't light up when she walked into the room or immediately make his way to her side.

"I can't imagine," she breathed, thinking of everything she'd learned. "Though at least he's starting to remember."

"And he'll be better once Shuri gets all of that HYDRA junk out of his head but he's still pretty detached. I think he has the memories but doesn't know what to do with them."

Sadie parsed out the songbird charm from her necklace. Bucky gave her the charm shortly before the entire unit shipped out for Normandy so she had a piece of him to carry with her up the beachhead and through the exhausting days that followed. Back then they'd been stationed with a huge chunk of the invading force at Weymouth, two souls in a sea of thousands all preparing for the most momentous event of their lives. For days they'd run the gamut of training exercises and dry runs for the big day, all sandwiched in between briefing after briefing. To add insult to injury, being stationed with the general army forced Sadie and Bucky to abide by Army rules and regulations which meant that the inconsequential chevrons on Bucky's shoulders forced their relationship into hiding. They managed to find little moments slipped into the chaos of the days, sharing longing looks from across the officer's club and little touches as they passed. Every so often Bucky would find a way to pull her into one shadowy corner or another to share a passionate kiss, including the time he gave her the charm.

_"You might hate the nickname, songbird, but just know that when I'm out there, every time I close my eyes I'm hearing your voice," he'd said between rushed kisses._

_ "You're teetering dangerously into sappy territory, buck sergeant."_

_ Bucky smiled against her lips. "Maybe, but it's the truth. I guess we'll both have to live with a little sap." _

Sadie wondered if Bucky ever heard her voice echo in his mind the way she still heard him. Letting go of Bucky took every ounce of her willpower and even then, even all those years later, Bucky's voice was the only part of him she couldn't let go.

"I still can't believe that Murphy, of all people-"

"Steve." Sadie gave a gentle shake of her head. "There's no way you could have known. We can go down that road all we want but we'll still end up here."

"You're right. I know you are. I just - you really don't remember anything that happened?"

Sadie shook her head. "I've been trying but every time I think I get somewhere, I'm just scratching at the surface." She pushed her fingers into her loose curls. "And it's so frustrating because in theory I know what happened. The marks are there and my x-rays don't lie but even with all of that information it's just-"

"A big blank?"

She deflated. "Yeah."

"I've got a plan for that. A couple of my friends are coming in tomorrow morning and one of them has a unique enhancement - she can't exactly read minds but, well, it's kind of hard to explain, to be honest. But if you're open to it, she might be able to help you figure out why you can't remember."

Sadie wrinkled her nose at the term 'enhancement.' "Is there not a better word than enhanced? It's so strange and every time I hear it I feel like it implies that I was somehow less before."

"You were anything but less before," Steve waved her off with a warm smile. "I mean, come on...when it comes to our respective methods of coping with grief you're the clear winner. I crashed a plane into a glacier and you went on to create one of the world's most influential charitable organizations. You know when I wasn't a wanted man I actually did some work with IHAP? Dum Dum's granddaughter is an outreach director and she got in touch with me. I did a few tours through some of the work sites and what you built is just amazing and-why are you smiling at me like that?"

She'd forgotten how infectious Steve's enthusiasm and personality could be. He found hope in the most unlikely places and even facing down the most daunting tasks. Just being around that fearlessness made Sadie feel braver and lighter, like she could do anything, even face her fears when it came to Bucky. She shook her head but was still beaming at him.

"It's just really, _really_ good to see you," she explained and dropped a hand out. Steve filled it and gave her a careful, reassuring squeeze. Sadie sipped her whiskey and waggled her eyebrows humorously. "Even if you are a criminal."

Steve threw his head back and laughed. The bottle was empty by the time they went their separate ways to bed.

X X X

The next morning Nakia was waiting for Sadie at the foot of the stairs. In her hands she held what she called a tablet, another example of a computer, a term which Sadie found exasperating and fascinating in equal turns.

"Is there anything these days that isn't run by a computer?" Sadie asked as she let Nakia steer her down the main hall and through the doors into the dining room.

"No, not really. But you'll get used to it," Nakia promised even as she opened the screen with an elegant swipe of her finger. "I do not know how much T'Challa told you but Wakanda is beginning efforts into global outreach. We want to bring our technology to the most underserved communities in a bid to improve the lives of those who need it most."

"He mentioned something about outreach," said Sadie, thinking about T'Challa's desire to use her DNA to advance Wakanda's medical research with the hopes of disseminating cures to the world's most dangerous diseases. "But I didn't realize that the process was only just getting off the ground."

"We are still on the ground, which is why I am so happy that you're here. We've purchased property in an inner city neighborhood in Oakland California with the hopes of opening our first outreach center. I thought it would be easy but the local politicians are proving to be-" she paused, searching for the right word.

"Unholy pains in your backside?" Sadie suggested and Nakia's shoulders sagged in defeat.

"I did not expect a city council to wield so much power!"

Unbidden to her, the corners of Sadie's mouth rose. She followed Nakia's example and sat down at the long dining room table, taking the chair at the corner adjacent to Nakia's. "It took me over two months to convince the city council in Dresden to allow my aid team to use an old gymnasium to administer care during its first run. In order to get approval, I had to get an exception to the zoning laws which was doable but not without swaying the council. I can't tell you how many contentious meetings and stuffy dinners I had to sit through just to curry enough favor to get the votes."

"So, you're familiar with how all of this is supposed to work?" An eager note held the edge of Nakia's voice and she leaned forward slightly.

"I'm familiar with the male ego," Sadie replied with a wan smile. "And that's pretty much the same thing."

Nakia coughed to cover her laugh just when T'Challa appeared. He took in the sight of the two women sitting in close concert and raised an eyebrow. "Why do I get the feeling I will regret whatever it is you're discussing?"

"You won't. I was simply going to ask Miss Reid if I could pick her brain on how she managed to establish her organization."

"Of course you can. Though I don't know how much help I'll be. Everything's so different now."

"Not that different. As you mentioned, I am having to deal with a lot of self-important councilmen." Sadie didn't miss the special emphasis Nakia placed on 'councilmen.' "And I think you're going to be plenty helpful-clearly you did something right because IHAP continues to prosper even today. Haven't you read about it?'

Sadie shook her head. "I've been mostly cut off from the outside world until now so I only know what everyone else has told me. Steve mentioned last night that he did some volunteer work but it's still hard to believe that it's lasted this long. When I disappeared there were only three active teams."

"Remind me and I will show you just what you managed to build."

A household staff member interrupted Nakia with breakfast. The array of options presented to Sadie stunned her for a moment. Though she'd eaten well growing up, there were plenty of delicacies and exotic offerings she'd never had or even heard of until now. A servant set a platter of fruit on the table and her eyes widened at the vivid colors all arranged on one platter. The fruit, however, was just the beginning and Nakia took it upon herself to point out the various offerings, giving Sadie a brief description of the items that she then took upon herself to load up on Sadie's plate.

"Eat! And do yourself a favor and start with the Mandazi because they are my favorite."

At the compound Sadie was used to eating the bland, nutrient-packed food that the nutritionists prepared for her. The flavors were nothing new to her and she'd grown accustomed to eating unimpressive fare while living her nomadic life with IHAP. She halfway expected the trend to continue on in perpetuity but this concept was lost on the Wakandans and Sadie stared at her plate wondering how she would ever begin to eat everything without getting sick. Determined to be a good guest, Sadie started with Nakia's recommendation, taking an experimental bite from the corner of the fried confection. The flavor was unlike anything she'd ever experienced and Nakia read the change of emotions on Sadie's face with a growing grin of satisfaction.

"Told you," was all she said before turning to her own breakfast.

T'Challa sat with them and the trio ate in comfortable silence. After the heavy subjects they'd covered the night before, Sadie was happy there were no other surprises awaiting her. T'Challa read on a tablet and Nakia spent her meal asking Sadie sparse questions about the origins of IHAP. They carried on until Sadie forced herself to stop eating lest she get sick and her timing proved impeccable. Steve appeared in the doorway, looking both serious and anxious at the same time.

"They're here."

By 'they're' Steve meant Sam Wilson and Wanda Maximoff. The duo took up the front room of the consulate, both looking travel-worn and tired. Sadie followed T'Challa and Steve into the room to greet the pair and as she passed she overheard the king ask Steve a question.

"Where is Miss Romanoff?"

"Chasing down a lead on some stolen Chitauri weapons. She's following up with some contacts that won't talk to anyone but her."

None of that made any sense to Sadie and so she brushed it off for the time being. Steve made hasty introductions. Sadie was learning to hate the discomfort she associated with meeting new people. Both Sam and Wanda assessed her carefully, taking in the details of her appearance. Sam crossed his powerful arms over his chest and tipped his chin up once.

"So, how's life out of deep freeze treating you so far?"

Sadie let one eyebrow slide higher up her forehead. "Well, I'm not sleeping in a foxhole in occupied France so I suppose things could be worse."

Sam's serious demeanor broke in favor of a handsome smile that twisted Sadie's stomach in a knot. He turned toward Wanda who hovered just a few feet away. She seemed unsure of herself both in the room and among her company. At once Sadie recognized her youth in comparison to Steve and Sam and wondered how she fell into their keep. The way she crossed her arms over her chest closed herself off from everyone else, hinting at a story begging to be told.

"You know when Cap called us to meet him here, I didn't believe it. I read about you in history class when I was a kid," Sam explained and showed her to a seat on one of the sofas. "It's nice to meet an old friend of Steve's who isn't trying to kill us.

"Sam," Steve's warning saved Sadie from having to come up with a reply to such an extraordinary statement. She supposed Sam meant his comment in jest but the connotation was too breathtaking to process that. Sadie stared down at her hands and quietly wondered just how many people Bucky actually had tried to kill before he finally threw off his programming.

Steve drew Wanda over to the sofa.

"You remember last night when I told you I had an enhanced friend who might be able to help you recover your memories?" Sadie nodded. "Wanda is that friend."

Their eyes met in a measured, wary glance. The only other enhanced individual Sadie knew was Steve and she knew for a fact he didn't possess the powers to get into her head and suss out her missing memories. In the face of Sadie's initial silence, Wanda shifted her weight and drew her arms just a little tighter over her chest.

"How?" Sadie asked, taking care to keep as much skepticism out of her tone as she could.

"Wanda's abilities aren't like mine or yours." Even hearing herself grouped in the same sentence as Steve when it came to unusual qualities sounded foreign. "What she can do is more-"

"Mental," Wanda supplied. Sadie instantly recognized her accent as Eastern European though the precise country escaped her.

"Maybe you should do a demo," Sam suggested from where he reclined in one of the armchairs nearby.

All eyes fell on Wanda. She raised a hand and twisted her fingers, producing wisps of red light that undulated with the elegant movements. The light shot across the room where a vase levitated off a side table and drifted across the room, coming to rest in Wanda's hands. Sadie's jaw dropped. A pin could be heard dropping in the silence that followed. Wanda sent the vase back to its spot on the table where it didn't so much as wobble when it landed. Sadie looked between Wanda and Steve, unable to even string a sentence together in the face of such a show. Steve shrugged his broad shoulders but hazarded a grin.

"You should see what she can do with an armored car."

At Steve's praise, Wanda's stiff facade broke and she ducked her head. Her red hair hid the tiny smile that flashed across her pretty face. His praise also bolstered her confidence. Shedding her uncertainty, she came to the sofa and sank down next to Sadie.

"I can also look into other people's minds," she explained, taking care to fold her hands in her lap. "Sometimes I can see what you might not."

"Like my missing time," Sadie suggested and Wanda nodded. For a moment she said nothing and tried to process all of this new information. There was a lot to be uncertain about. Sadie considered herself something of a private person. The past few weeks of having her entire life opened up for scrutiny by complete strangers was bad enough but she wasn't sure how she felt about a total stranger using her strange gifts to dig around in her head. Then there was the other issue Sadie had been wrestling with ever since her first shower at the compound. Against her volition, her hand went around to her side where, through her pale blue dress, she felt the edges of her burn scars. Anyone who read her medical charts knew she'd been subjected to torture, that much was obvious and it begged an important question. Even if Sadie could recover her memories, did she want to? What if her mind was actively protecting her from a truth too terrible to realize? That was nothing to say of the fact that the suggested method of recovery was via a girl who couldn't be older than twenty and her quite frankly bizarre and alarming powers.

"I know it's a big ask," Steve's voice drifted into her ear. "And it's possible that we can figure it out through other ways; we think Bucky might know a little bit about it but that's not a guarantee. But this is one of the most direct ways I can think of to try and fill in the gaps."

Sadie looked to Steve. It occurred to her then that there was more riding on recovering her memories than just that. Learning what happened to her could explain how she ended up enhanced. It could help explain the extent of those enhancements and also bring closure to more than one person than just herself. She'd also considered whether Bucky could answer those questions but what would it mean to both of them if she didn't have to ask? If she didn't have to put any more burden on him than he was already carrying?

Wanda remained statue still, watching and waiting. She was quite composed for her age; Sadie wondered what occurred in the girl's life that led her down this path. A shadow clung to her eyes and Sadie supposed that Wanda's story, like far too many, was punctuated with tragedy. But Steve trusted her and Sadie learned long ago that Steve's judgments about other people were almost always right. Drawing in a breath, she shifted to face Wanda.

"Will it hurt?"

Wanda shook her head. "It might feel...unsettling, but it won't hurt."

Armed with that reassurance, Sadie settled herself and put on her best hopeful expression. "Well, then I think we have to try, don't we?"

While she tried to stay relaxed, Sadie was aware that Steve, T'Challa, and Sam all sat up a little straighter and looked a fraction more alert.

"Just shut them out," Wanda counseled.

Wanda brought both of her hands to either side of Sadie's temples, not quite touching but close enough that Sadie's nerves piqued in response. In the far edges of her peripheral vision she caught sight of little flashes of red light that sank into her skin. Wanda blinked and her eyes flashed the same shade of red. The strangest sensation filled Sadie up. At once she felt invaded, as though she were sharing her mind with someone else who delicately pushed at the edges and slipped in-between memories and a lifetime of knowledge.

"What can you find?" Sadie heard Steve but felt far away, as though he was speaking to her through water. All Sadie could really concentrate on was Wanda's presence in her mind, doing her best to be as discreet as possible as she rifled through everything packed in there.

"Green," she murmured, almost surprised by her conclusion. "Your healing abilities are everywhere, trying to finish healing the damage from cryo and everything before. The power reminds me of mine but different at the same time. Once you're healthy I think you might be able to project."

"You mean heal other people?" Steve asked.

Wanda's brows furrowed. "Maybe, but it's still too early to tell."

"What about her memories?" T'Challa sounded similarly disconnected from Sadie's reality.

Her gaze locked onto Wanda's. The women held each other in steady estimation, both focused on the task at hand. "I am looking."

And then Sadie gasped. The sound, whether it was real or not, echoed painfully between her ears, hammering on her eardrums from the inside out and reverberating through every centimeter of her skull. She felt as though someone had taken a sledgehammer to a barrier in her mind, swinging hard at a solid steel wall that refused to budge. A shock shot through her system, running all the way down her spine and splintering out to her limbs until it terminated at the tips of her fingers and toes. Every nerve in her body went haywire. The whites of her eyes showed as images flashed in rapid succession, each one garbled and half-obscured. Phantoms of sensations rocked her body, the bite of needles, burning her skin and spilling ice cold down her throat. In her ears she heard the echo of blood-curdling screams, someone yelling her name and then searing blue light filled her mind, cutting off her senses. Her mind pushed back with force, expelling Wanda out so hard it sent both women reeling backward. Sadie fell back against Steve who steadied her upper arms. Sam barely caught Wanda as she tipped sideways off the sofa. Both of them panted for air and Sadie thought her lungs might collapse inward around her pounding heart.

"It's not for nothing but that's the strangest thing I've ever experienced," Sadie managed to choke out when she recovered halfway. Immediately she touched Wanda's knee. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," she promised though her hand still remained over her heart. "I'm alright."

"Uh," Sam's eyes darted between Sadie and Wanda. "What the hell just happened?"

"Your memories are there but they're hidden," Wanda paused and scrunched her nose up in confusion. "More like shielded. It's like your mind put up a shield to protect you from them. I tried to get past it but you fought back and forced me out."

"Do you think it's related to her enhancements?" T'Challa's quiet inquiry cut through the tension that followed.

"Yes. I think there is more to your powers than what everyone initially thought."

Sadie didn't find this any more comforting than she found the visions when Wanda tried to get around her apparent shield. All she knew for certain was that she didn't want anyone to try again. Eventually the adrenaline worked its way out of her system and her heart calmed itself, returning to a steady beat. Steve remained almost comically close to her, but Sadie didn't begrudge him; she was just as concerned as he was. There were too many questions with no easy answers.

"Maybe once we understand more about your abilities we can find a workaround?" Steve suggested, an optimist to the last.

Wanda tilted her head to the side, considering this option. "It's possible. For now I think that's the best course of action."

Sadie caught Steve's worried glance. He started when she gave his knee an affectionate pat. "There's no sense in getting tied up in knots just yet," she counseled though she knew him well enough to know that he would worry regardless. Looking to T'Challa, Sadie shrugged a thin shoulder. "Your Majesty, it looks as though your scientists have their work cut out for them."

T'Challa's evasive, almost amused smile surprised her but put her at ease. His reply was similarly vague but earnest.

"Shuri will be delighted."

X X X

Sam and Wanda stayed until the following morning. They spent most of their time holed up with Steve, discussing plans for their next moves. Sadie learned information in bits and pieces, picking up location names tossed out along with people she'd never heard of. The most she gleaned was that Steve and his latest comrades were hot on the trail of stolen weapons, picking right up where their old day jobs left off. Though everyone else seemed mildly surprised by Steve's turn for the lawless, Sadie wasn't fazed in the least. More than once during his tenure with the SSR Steve alluded to his rule breaking past, to taking drastic actions to get ahead. Combining those tendencies with his authority issues, Sadie couldn't say that Steve going off the reservation to pursue his own form of justice was a galloping shock.

She spent her time with Nakia, reviewing the members of the Wakandan council, names of notable landmarks, and any other little bits of information that she deemed necessary. Sadie ate her lunch with a tablet in front of her, doing as Nakia instructed and swiping through the various pictures of the council members so she could associate their faces and names. Although it wasn't imperative that she know everything cold upon arriving at her temporary home, Sadie wanted to make a good first impression. Everything boiled down to good manners and Sadie went diving into the recesses of her brain for her old southern hospitality, hoping that if she combined that with the specific customs of Wakanda that she would manage to make her entry into such a foreign society as smooth as possible.

At the very least she discovered a strong ally in Nakia. Whether it was her eagerness to pick Sadie's brain over her experiences getting IHAP up and running or sheer curiosity, Nakia couldn't have been more pleasant and easy to talk to if she tried. She seemed determined to take Sadie under her wing, excited by the prospects Sadie brought to the table but also this sign of T'Challa's sincere wish to bring Wakanda onto the global stage. Sadie understood quickly that going to Wakanda was a much bigger deal that she initially thought. Wakanda had never openly hosted an outsider before. For the country to open its borders even to her was a monumental step forward and Nakia was determined to make that first step as flawless and noteworthy as she could.

In the evening everyone convened for dinner where, once again, too many serious topics overshadowed an otherwise pleasant meal. Sadie watched and listened. Multiple sides to the same story emerged over time and the longer Sadie absorbed her surroundings, the more she understood the events of the previous two months were still reverberating through more than one community. The consequences - from Rhodey's paralysis, to Steve and Tony's falling out, to Bucky being granted asylum - were still rippling outward from the central points of conflict and would be for quite some time. Sadie wondered if there was possibly a worse time to emerge into the world than now; she often caught herself imagining how much easier the situation would have been on everyone if Steve and Tony were still on speaking terms when she was found.

But dwelling on the 'what ifs' threatened to lead Sadie down darker paths. She learned the hard way that hanging her hat on 'what if' questions was enough to drain her mentally and emotionally.

Fortunately, Sadie didn't have much time to dwell on anything except for the hours that ticked by, bringing her closer to finally arriving in Wakanda and seeing Bucky for the first time in over seven decades. To say that she was excited was something of a pitiful understatement, though if Sadie was being truly honest with herself then she would admit that her anxiety far outstripped her eagerness. Excepting certain cases in literature, nearly all couples torn asunder by death never expected to reunite. There wasn't a blueprint for how to handle reuniting with your ex-fiance after decades of forced separation and brainwashing.

Yet, for all of her concerns about seeing Bucky again, Sadie found herself uncharacteristically antsy. The morning they were due to leave she was up with the sun, double-checking that her sparse belongings were packed and she was ready to go. At Nakia's insistence several more articles of clothing now joined her initial pieces, including a pretty emerald green sleeveless dress that Nakia insisted Sadie wear for her arrival in Wakanda when the entire council would be waiting to meet her.

When it felt safe and not too early to go downstairs, Sadie made her way to the main floor only to discover that Steve, Sam, and Wanda were all awake and convened in the entrance hall. Steve beckoned Sadie to join them.

"Are you all leaving?" She asked. Her stomach twisted in a knot at the thought Steve would leave her now, so soon after patching their friendship.

But her worries were in vain, proven when he shook his head. "No, just seeing Sam and Wanda off. I'll join up with them a little later but right now I need to be in Wakanda. Shuri is going to start Bucky's deprogramming process when we get back and I promised him I'd be there. Besides, I couldn't leave you high and dry so soon after you woke up."

"Steve, you don't have to. It sounds like what you're doing is important."

"Not so important that Sam and Nat can't hold it down for a couple weeks without me. When I woke up I didn't have anyone to help me acclimate to everything. I want to make sure you don't have to go through this alone."

Sadie silently thanked her lucky stars for a friend like Steve Rogers. He left her in order to take Wanda aside to share a few more parting words. She became aware of a presence drawing closer to her. Out of the corner of her eye, Sadie caught sight of Sam Wilson shoving his hands in his pockets.

"He's just glad to have an excuse to stay somewhere with a constant supply of hot water," he joked.

A weak smile pulled at Sadie's lips. She hadn't given much thought to Steve's living conditions now that he was a wanted man. It made sense that his usual accommodations weren't plausible any longer. She supposed there were a litany of places they could hide, dives and dumps that wouldn't ask questions though that didn't make any of those places any more desirable. Still, this wasn't the first time Steve had to rough it in less than ideal conditions. Her threatened smile turned into a smirk.

"He's handled worse before, I can promise you that," she said, thinking of the half-destroyed buildings, abandoned farmhouses, and worse that the Commandos used as bases and rendezvous points during missions.

"I'm sure he has. Still, I think he's looking forward to spending some time away from all of that."

"I can't say I blame him and I am happy that he'll be there to help me find my footing."

"It's going to take a little getting used to," Sam remarked when he joined her.

"Just a little," She echoed.

"You'll figure it out. It's just like coming home from a tour of duty, only more extreme."

"You were in the service?" Sadie asked, pulling her gaze from the screen to evaluate him.

Sam nodded, one corner of his mouth drawing into a smile. "58th pararescue in the Air Force-" Sadie's brows scrunched in confusion, "It's a long story. What I'm trying to say is, treat it like you're coming home after a tour and it'll be easier."

She hadn't considered her jarring return to reality in those terms before. Yet the longer Sadie chewed the thought over, the more she realized that Sam wasn't entirely wrong. When she'd first come home Sadie couldn't get over how fast the world moved on without her. The war ended in the United States long before most of its soldiers came home and she struggled with catching up to the changes in society, style, and expectations that were so different from when she left for Europe.

"That's good advice, though I think the learning curve is a little steeper here than I'm accustomed to."

Sam's chest rose in a half-chuckle. "I'll grant you that but," he gave her a quick once-over, "you look like you're up to the task. Steve certainly thinks you are."

Over her shoulder, Sadie caught a glimpse of Steve. He rubbed the back of his neck while he listened to Wanda. Even with the leap forward in time, he'd hardly changed in her eyes. Everything Steve did had a purpose and he fit in just as easily here as he did in a dimly-lit London bunker. Sometimes she half-expected him to start giving marching orders and pull her over to review tactical maps. Having his vote of confidence, though she didn't need the validation, made her feel better nonetheless.

"I hope he's right," she murmured.

"Well, just in case you need a jump start," Sam opened his jacket and reached into the inner pocket. He produced a small black notebook. "Steve carried one of these around when I first met him. I took the liberty of starting one for you too."

Sadie took the notebook and opened the front cover to the first page. Sam's handwriting was tight and neat and went down the page in a tidy bullet-point list. Lines jumped out from the page, words and names like _Elvis Presley_, _The Little Rock Nine_, _The Berlin Wall_, and _Troubleman Soundtrack_. Though she couldn't make heads or tails of any of the references, she was taken by the gesture regardless. Sadie was reminded almost hourly of the fact that she was adrift in an uncharted sea but even this little list provided a nice jumping off point in conjunction with her voluminous history books. One phrase, however, did stand out to her quite clearly and she fought a wry smile.

"The moon landing?" She enquired.

"Yeah, you didn't hear about that yet? One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind?"

"Can't say that I have. Did we-no-," she shook her head in disbelief. "How could we go to the moon?"

Sam's grin widened. "Do me a favor, look that up before you ask Steve about what happened in New York right after he thawed out." Wanda called out to him and jerked her head toward the open elevator that would take them down to the basement level. "It looks like I've got to go. It was nice meeting you; I'm sure we'll see each other again soon."

This only added to her confusion. Without another word, Sam hoisted his duffle bag on his shoulder and left her to join Wanda. Sadie whipped around to catch him before the doors closed. Wanda gave her a small wave goodbye and Sam tipped his chin up at Steve before throwing a wink her direction.

"What do you mean what happened in New York?" She called out to him as the doors closed. "What happened in New York?"

X X X

There was something alluring about the ambient light that emanated from the edges of the floor. The blue hue caught Bucky's attention and soothed the headache that threatened to blossom behind his eyes. He liked the softness the light brought to the slick edges and sharp corners of Princess Shuri's lab, easing his nerves and lulling him into a sense of security he seldom allowed himself to feel. Bucky remained vaguely aware of the motion surrounding him, of Shuri blowing around her lab like a miniature tornado, a doctor making meticulous preparations, and two nurses attending to her every need. Some part of him recognized that he should pay more attention but he was so tired of tests and hearing about his condition and the deprogramming process that he just barely noticed a nurse taking his hand in hers until he felt a cold, wet swipe across the back of his hand. The nurse started when he turned the full force of his previously vacant gaze on her.

"It is just antiseptic," she assured him in a soothing, heavily accented voice.

She inspected his hand until she found a suitable point to insert a shining needle. Bucky blinked once before he realized she'd already removed the needle, leaving a catheter behind; she'd been so smooth he didn't even feel the bite. Though he refused to acknowledge why, watching the nurse plucked a lonely heartstring, resonating a sad chord through his chest.

Bucky silenced the thought, fighting a frown. "What are you giving me?"

"We are starting with saline to flush the line and ensure you're properly hydrated," she explained.

A shadow fell across his line of sight. "After that we will administer the drugs necessary to place you into an induced coma."

Bucky scowled. "Why the coma?"

Shuri unglued her eyes from the screen in her hands. "Because in order to get the most optimal scan of your brain I need you in stasis but I can't get it when you're in cryofreeze, so this is the best option. Once you're under, I will keep you that way until after the deprogramming process is complete."

"You want to make sure I don't do anything dangerous while you're deprogramming me," he accused, scowl deepening.

When their eyes met Bucky swore he saw a glimmer of a laugh or something akin to amusement flicker across her face. "I want to make sure that you're as mentally and emotionally stable as possible," she countered in a light, pithy tone of voice that might have irritated Bucky were she not so unbelievably self-assured.

Bucky recognized there was a certain pathetic quality to his situation. That he was at his most stable when placed in an induced coma spoke volumes about his overall state. He fought another grimace while wrestling a brand new doubt back down into a cage in the pit of his stomach. What if nothing changed after Shuri removed the trigger words? Sure, he wouldn't be hapless prey to anyone smart enough to figure out the sequence of Russian but what if lifting that weight off his shoulders didn't relieve at least some of his emotional damage?

A light, playful sigh interrupted his thoughts, keeping from tipping off the ledge down another panicked spiral. "This is why the coma is necessary, Sergeant Barnes. Because in the days I've been preparing you for the deprogramming process, you can't go five minutes without staring off into space and overthinking things."

Blood swirled into his cheeks. Were his lapses in attention really so obvious?

"I just want this to work," he admitted, allowing a rare moment of vulnerability figuring that at the very least he could be honest with the person he was trusting to fix his scrambled brain.

Shuri's lips eased into a reassuring smile and she placed one of her petite hands on his bare shoulder, infusing a surprising amount of warmth into his cool skin. "Trust me, this is going to be easy. When you wake up you'll be free of HYDRA's programming."

It was this promise of freedom that ensnared Bucky in the first place. Even after HYDRA fell and he emerged from his brainwashed haze, Bucky never felt totally free. He was always looking over his shoulder every place he went, planning his escape routes almost daily and always sleeping with one eye open. The mere knowledge that he could be so easily controlled always kept him on edge, never quite able to relax even in those precious moments where he felt he'd reclaimed some semblance of normalcy. Constantly living in a state of total paranoia was exhausting and yet that anxiety followed him everywhere. To rid himself of that particular weakness would free him in ways he'd only dreamed about until now. And that relief, in and of itself, was more than worth the number of unknown risks facing him now.

"Okay. What do I have to do?"

"All you need to do is sit still while my team runs some final diagnostic tests and then you'll lay down in there." She looked over her shoulder to a shining white half-tube that didn't look dissimilar from his cryo chamber. "Once you're comfortable, we'll put you under. That bed is covered in sensors that will monitor everything from your core body temperature and heart rate to every muscle twitch you make. It will adjust in response in order to keep you in a constant state of stasis. From there I will make a digital copy of your brain and run deprogramming simulations until I've perfected my method. And after that—"

"You'll do it to me."

"Precisely."

Bucky wasn't sure if the note of absolute certainty in Shuri's voice was a good thing or cause for concern. He couldn't remember ever meeting anyone so self-assured in his entire life. Though, if his limited exposure to her wondrous inventions was any measure, she had every right to be confident. Plus, there was something about her infectious optimism that rang a distant bell. Shuri reminded him of someone from his past but everytime Rebecca's name sprang to the tip of his tongue he second-guessed himself, uncertain if he was remembering his sister as she truly was or how he so desperately wanted her to be.

"And there you go again - what is with the thousand-yard stare?" Shuri rolled her eyes as she turned away from him to set her tablet down.

"It's nothing," he retorted.

"Sure it's not," she crossed her arms over her chest, leaning her hip against the counter next to his stool. Bucky found he wanted to look anywhere but at Shuri. Though he was beyond grateful that she'd agreed to undertake his deprogramming, there were times when he couldn't quite tell if she was doing it for purely altruistic purposes. There was always a certain level of hunger shining in her eyes and clinging to her voice. He supposed that she was like every other genius he'd encountered, always scrambling for the next breakthrough and in possession of a voracious appetite for whatever was new and unknown. And as far as Bucky could tell there was only a wafer thin line of morality preventing any good genius from giving into the darkest impulses all in the name of science. But looking at Shuri, all of sixteen years old, it was hard to imagine her falling prey to her own mind, especially when she took such immense pleasure out of disparaging him every chance she got.

Bucky let his gaze drift past her to the waiting bed. His throat tightened when he considered his own deepest desires warring with his anxieties. "How long will it take?"

"As long as it takes," she mused and though Bucky refused to meet her eye he still felt her piercing gaze on him. "I will not know until I can actually start running simulations. Why, do you have somewhere better to be?"

Bucky blinked. Buried between the lines of Shuri's playful tone was a serious question. This time two months ago he would have said yes even if that other place was chasing down repeated dead ends with no more concrete information than mere wisps he'd cobbled together through a variety of sources. But that was then, before Vienna, before Zemo, Germany, Siberia, and the awful fights in-between. Back then chasing a spectre felt like the most important thing he could be doing but that was also before King T'Challa gave him hope.

His lips pulled into a weak smile. "No, I've got nowhere else to go."

"Good, because you can't back out on me now. The amount of data I will get from mapping and mining your brain could jump-start a dozen projects I've only dreamed of initiating until now."

"Sounds like a good outcome for you," he noted.

"It will be a good outcome for both of us."

Bucky nodded and moved his hand for the smooth-handed nurse to remove the line from the saline bag. At Shuri's direction he crossed the room and laid down. The mattress sculpted to his body at once, cool and soft. On either side of him the sides of the bed curved around him and flickered to life, sending rays of blue light from the sensors washing over him, recording every metric imaginable. The nurse fed a new IV line through a port in the side and then took great care in attaching it to the catheter.

Shuri appeared, tablet latched to her hand once more. "Just relax," she smiled down at him. "This is going to be a walk through the savannah."

"That's not how the saying goes where I'm from," he muttered.

Her grin widened. "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Sergeant, but you are a long way from home."

Nobody needed to tell him twice. "It's Bucky."

"Close your eyes," she directed just as the medicine hit his veins. Almost immediately he began to feel drowsy. His body reflexively tried to fight the urge to go under but already his eyelids felt like ten pound weights, dragging him down. "I will see you on the other side."

Bucky muttered something incoherent and the last thing he could recall before sinking into sleep was wishing that Steve had made it back in time to see him off.

X X X

Sadie couldn't decide the best part of the view from her room. Perhaps it was the large balcony that jutted out from the common area outside of her bedroom, overlooking the palace below her which consisted of multiple levels made of shining marble, crafted with meticulous detail and dotted with vivid green terraces and crystal blue pools. But then she couldn't take her eyes off the city skyline. Not even modern New York City could hold a candle to the splendor of Wakanda's capital. Sadie couldn't make sense of the wild architecture, of the unique curves to the buildings, the shining spires, the shimmering glass and the way the entire city wove together to create a nexus that hummed with life but didn't seem even remotely out of place with the nature encroaching on all sides. She thought that the city must have been planned with that in mind, a perfect melding of organized and wild that was so busy she never knew where to look. But as she raised her eyes above the buildings and drank in the glorious morning, Sadie decided that the best part of her view was the clear blue sky that reached down to kiss the tops of the trees and shattered over the water that flowed along one side of the city. Everywhere she looked, nature crept into the view and each breath she took filled her lungs with clean air that did almost as much to bolster her spirits and body as the breakfast she'd finished moments earlier.

Behind her, Steve milled about in the common area, bouncing from one task to another. She wasn't sure who he was talking to on his phone but she could tell that whatever was going on, it was serious business. Rather than try to absorb more information, she retreated to the view while she waited for King T'Challa to come for her as promised.

"Nat's sure she can get us an in?" Steve's voice reached her as he paced past the open door.

Sadie fought the urge to roll her eyes. She wasn't ever sure there was a period in Steve's life when he wasn't working himself to the bone. Forcing herself to focus on anything else, she picked out a lone cyclist on the street below, weaving between the traffic. A little life story bloomed into her head while she watched the tiny bike grow smaller and smaller.

"Well, just be careful. We've seen what those Chitauri weapons can do and I don't want you all getting caught in the crossfire."

Now there was an amusing statement if Sadie ever heard one. Steve was a strange combination of daredevil and mother hen: always ready to leap into the fray, his own well-being be damned but hesitant to risk anyone else if he didn't have to.

His shadow fell long over the balcony. "Alright, keep me posted." Sadie glanced over her shoulder when she heard him say goodbye. An apologetic smile tugged at his lips and his shoulder sagged. "Sorry. When I left the Avengers I thought I'd get a break from all of the team coordination but I guess I was wrong."

"Well you know what they say," she teased as he joined her.

"There's no rest for the wicked?" He suggested before she could finish her thought.

"I was going to say something about once a leader always a leader but I like yours better."

Steve slumped against the railing, resting his forearms on the wide marble topper. Without much thought she reached out and gave his shoulder a light squeeze before rubbing her palm over the tense muscle in circles. "How are you doing?"

"I'm alright. It's hard to be upset with a view like this."

"It never gets old."

"Do you ever get used to it?" She asked in a soft voice. "To all of the changes and feeling like you're always going to be a little bit behind? Or a lot, in my case?"

Steve continued to drink in the morning. "It takes a while but you'll catch up. One day you're gonna wake up and realize you've adjusted without even really noticing. Or at least that's how it worked for me."

"I hope so. I thought everything at the Avengers compound was advanced but it feels like child's play compared to Wakanda," she said, thinking of the flight they took from New York. T'Challa brought her to the front of the jet so she could look through the windows when they descended on the city. At first she'd been terrified they would crash as Okoye took the jet so low it looked as though they would plow into the trees before they pierced an illusion, passing through a rippling blue barrier that revealed the capitol in all its glory. From there her evening was a dizzying rush of formal greetings, faces and names she would struggle to remember, and a dinner so sumptuous and filling that she was asleep the second her head hit the pillow.

Now she waited for T'Challa to retrieve her so she could tour Wakanda's research facilities and meet the famed Shuri, who missed the previous evening's festivities due to another research project. Although her welcome couldn't have been warmer, Sadie still felt jittery at the prospect of meeting yet another royal. Would Shuri be as kind and inviting as her mother? Sadie hoped so; after all, Shuri was set to oversee Sadie's evaluation.

Of course, there was another reason the thought of touring Shuri's labs set Sadie on edge.

"Do you know if he'll be there?"

Steve squinted up into the morning sun. He nodded. "But I doubt you'll see him today. I know Shuri doesn't want to rock the boat right before she deprograms him."

Sadie bit the inside of her cheek. She couldn't decide if that was a good or bad thing. "I still can't believe this is real. I'm not sure I'll really believe it until I see him for myself."

"You're lucky you get time to adjust. The first time I saw Bucky was in the middle of a fight. At first I thought there was no way but - when you've seen some of the things I've seen, I just knew."

"I can't imagine," she whispered. "But you saved him and that's what matters the most."

"We saved each other," Steve noted but even then, he didn't sound convinced of his own words. "I'll feel better after Shuri gets all that junk out of his head."

Sadie let her comforting touch slide down to his forearm. "I can tell you it's not your fault all I want but it's not going to make a difference, is it?"

"Not really."

"I wish it would."

Steve bowed his head. At once Sadie could see the difference a few years and too much knowledge made. Despite standing mere inches from her, Sadie thought he was further away than ever. She hated that he spent so much time struggling alone, without the benefit of anyone who really understood.

She was saved from having to say anything further by T'Challa's arrival. Sadie hoped that Steve would be able to step away from his other obligations long enough to accompany them but his phone rang and she left with his promise that they would meet up afterward. And so she followed the young king out of the palace and to a waiting hovercraft, or at least that's how he explained it to her. The open vehicle zoomed over the city streets, taking a path around to the backside of the palace and a stretch of open land that sloped downward into dense jungle before sheer cliff faces jutted up, blanketed with crawling vines and there, built directly into the side of the cliff, was a shining building. T'Challa's attendant landed the craft on a platform at the very top and she followed him onto a lift that took them down.

"I fear I must apologize beforehand, Miss Reid. My sister can be-" T'Challa paused, searching for the best word. "Over enthusiastic."

"I don't mind a little enthusiasm," Sadie assured him, though she had to clasp her hands behind the back of her pale blue dress to keep from wringing her fingers.

The lift doors opened to a shining, sleek room filled with white furniture and pieces of technology that Sadie couldn't hope to name. T'Challa indicated for Sadie to follow and she did, down the short entryway and into the open room where he turned in the direction of a set of large screens and the young woman standing before them.

"Ah, brother! Your timing is excellent; we've only just put him under" She exclaimed from where she used her hands to rotate an image on one screen. Her deep brown eyes shone with curiosity, flickering from one screen to another, to a large white tube several feet away, to Sadie herself who felt increasingly uncertain about her bright, sterile surroundings. The light in the laboratory bathed her skin in a white glow that highlighted the scars on her hands and irritated her eyes in a strange way. Sadie blinked several times to try and acclimate to the change, feeling more and more like a simpleton by the passing second.

T'Challa gestured for Sadie to approach the young woman who turned her fleeting attention back to Sadie and this time her eyes widened in recognition. "Shuri, this is Miss Sadie Reid. Miss Reid, I'd like you to meet my sister, Shuri. She is in charge of your evaluation and also Sergeant Barnes' recovery."

If there were a human equivalent to sunshine, then surely the Princess of Wakanda was it. Her beautiful face lit up in a bright smile as she first traded the traditional Wakandan greeting with her brother before sticking her hand out to Sadie.

"It's nice to finally meet a foreigner I don't have to fix!" She pronounced over T'Challa's embarrassed groan and Sadie's own relieved, shocked laugh. Shuri set Sadie at immediate ease though she had no idea how someone so young was capable of so much. "Ignore my brother, he thinks I have no filter."

"I know you have no filter," T'Challa groused under his breath but relinquished Sadie to Shuri's welcoming control all the same. "What are you working on?"

"Phase one of broken white boy rehabilitation," she explained and gestured to the screens. "Right now the computer is taking scans and is rendering a working digital copy of Sergeant Barnes' brain." She pointed to a large round object on the nearest counter that was constantly shifting and refreshing itself, slowly creating an image of what appeared to be a human brain. "Once the copy is complete then I can begin running my algorithm to isolate the portions of Sergeant Barnes' brain that house the memories connected to his trigger words."

Sadie froze. At first she thought perhaps she'd made up Shuri's explanation out of some strange desperation but Sadie barely understood what Shuri was saying. That was when she took a good look at the information displayed on one of the screens. There, in large, crisp letters was Bucky's name and beneath that, an entire battery of data. A handful of numbers made sense to her: core body temperature, blood pressure, and heart rate but there was so much else on display she didn't understand. All she could really tell was that, aside from the fact Bucky's temperature ran a fraction warm, he was being closely monitored. Her eyes widened. Slowly, as though afraid of the truth, she turned her attention back to the white object a few feet away, just the right size and length for a person.

Everything else faded into nothing. Shuri's frenetic movements, T'Challa's questions, and all of the technology grew fuzzier the longer she stared at the tube. Sadie's heart pounded so hard against her breastbone that she became short of breath. She groped at her chest until her hand closed over her necklace, rubbing her father's wedding ring in a vain attempt to calm herself down. She couldn't see into the tube to see its occupant but that didn't matter. Because she knew. For the first time in over seventy years she was mere steps away from Bucky.

Shuri continued on in her lengthy description of her work but each word slipped into one of Sadie's ears and right out the other.

"Miss Reid?" T'Challa's voice was low and concerned.

Deep, deep down in the corner of her brain where she stored information on manners and propriety, Sadie knew that pointedly ignoring the king constituted rudeness of the highest degree. But she just didn't care about that at the moment. Sadie turned all the way away from the monitors to the tube and uprooted one trembling foot followed by another, taking the six steps necessary to peer over the glass cover of the tube.

A shaking hand shot to cover her mouth and Sadie squeezed her eyes shut to quell the urge to break down sobbing. Nonetheless, tears sprang to her lower eyelids and spilled onto her cheeks anyway, coming down thick and fast, dripping off her chin and onto her dress. Bouts of shivers rocked her body in waves, worsening when she opened her eyes once more to look down at the perfectly still, wonderfully familiar face in a state of peaceful sleep. There were unfamiliar elements to Bucky; she'd never seen him with a beard and his long hair fanned out around his head. But the sharp angle of his jaw remained the same, just as his eyelashes brushed his hollowed cheeks and his full mouth drew in a straight line. Even with the differences, Bucky's face was one she would know anywhere, one that she loved without reservation even now, even when he had no idea that she stood next to him.

"Sadie?"

"I-" her voice broke off because for a minute she wasn't in the middle of Shuri's lab in Africa.

No, Sadie stood in the middle of a snowy clearing in Austria, watching her comrades and friends come back downtrodden and unable to look at her. Even now she acutely remembered examining each face until she realized the one she wanted to see the most wasn't there and her entire world imploded. The memory of hearing that Bucky died was enough to drop her to her knees. Seeing him now, alive after all of these years and the monumental heartbreak of losing him, had the same effect. Without warning, Sadie collapsed and buried her face in her hands, sobbing softly into them while she tried to make sense of the echoing hole in her heart that Bucky's supposed death created. How many times had she caught herself wishing to see his face just one more time? To reach out and brush her fingers along his jaw and to watch his lips pull into a wicked grin right before he said something off-color or obnoxious? Sadie longed to wake to see his skin bathed in silvery moonlight, to hear him grumble into her hair when he rolled over to pull her against his chest. Her body lurched forward and she threw a hand out, planting it firmly on the floor to hold herself up while she continued to cry, unable and unwilling to stop.

In a flash it all came out, all of the longing and the years of grief that stole the joy from her life and left her staring out at the bleak decades alone. Soft sobs came out of her in a constant stream, each one of them for the future never realized and also for the realization that a different future still might be. Sadie cried for Bucky's death, for the visceral ache that was her constant companion and she sobbed because after all of it, he endured; he was still alive and somewhere in the near future he would wake and they would finally come face-to-face after all these years.

T'Challa knelt down next to her. "This was too much. I should not have brought you here."

"No," she replied thickly, wishing she had a smile or something more reassuring to drum up. Swallowing hard she tried to sit up, guided in part by T'Challa who had a firm grip on her arm. "This would be overwhelming no matter what. I thought-I just thought I would never see him again."

She dissolved all over again. If she had her wits about her, Sadie would have had the good grace to be mortified over her emotional breakdown. But neither T'Challa nor Shuri seemed particularly concerned by her outburst. Nimble fingers reached for the necklace hanging from her dress. Shuri parsed the engagement ring apart from the others.

"He won't be out long. After that I think you can help me with his rehabilitation."

Sadie nodded, finally able to support herself so she could try and put herself back together. She wiped her fingers beneath her eyes, catching the last of her tears. "This is ridiculous, I'm a grown woman," she muttered to herself. "I'm so sorry."

"There is nothing to apologize for," T'Challa promised her and offered a hand to help her back to her feet.

Sadie wasn't sure she agreed but she wasn't about to fight him or spit in the face of his graciousness. Instead she crossed her arms over her chest, drawing herself up in preparation to look down on Bucky's sleeping form once more. The sight still took her breath away but this time she could focus on other details she missed before. Dark circles bruised the undersides of his eyes and he was paler than she remembered. Bucky had always been a strong individual, made up of defined muscle but he was larger than before, another side-effect of HYDRA she was certain. Sadie followed the line of his right arm, folded to rest over his torso and so his IV was easily accessible. But when she went to inspect the rest of him she started. Sadie knew he'd lost his left arm but knowing and seeing were two completely different things. Her heart skipped a beat. Leaning further over the glass, her mouth opened in soft surprise, inspecting the black cap stretched over the stump just barely jutting off his shoulder and the shining metal that extended from beneath. His tank covered the majority of the metal base plate but a line of scar tissue was visible, marking the place where metal met flesh. A shiver ripped down Sadie's spine. She couldn't grasp the technology that made this type of prosthetic possible but there was a small part of her that was grateful he didn't have the metal arm so famously highlighted in his dossiers.

"It doesn't seem real," she whispered, ghosting her fingers over the glass as though maybe he could feel her longing to stroke his cheek through the barrier. "After all this time-back then I would have given anything to see him one last time. I never thought it would be like this."

Nobody seemed to know what to say in response and that suited Sadie fine. The longer she examined Bucky's face the easier she picked out familiar details. A spark went off in her chest, lighting a long-dormant ember that started to burn bright. Sadie's lips curved into a small smile; after weeks of stumbling around in the unknown, she felt warmth filling her up to the brim. Suddenly she didn't feel quite so lost anymore because an old, wonderfully familiar feeling crept back into her body. Despite being a woman out of her own time, standing in the middle of what she assumed was the most technologically advanced laboratory in the world, Sadie felt belonging. The gamble she'd taken to come to Wakanda paid off because she was where she was supposed to be, where she'd been designed to be - at Bucky's side.

At long last the ember burst into blazing flame. It melted the ice surrounding her heart and, for now, chased away the memory of that frigid afternoon when her entire world changed. Ever since Sadie emerged into this strange, frightening new world she'd been searching for a feeling she couldn't name. That feeling came to her now, burning bright and fortifying her for the journey to come.

As Sadie smiled down at Bucky, she felt hope.

**A/N: Probably not the reunion you were expecting but let's be real, are you really that surprised?. Next chapter tackles deprogramming!**

**Amazed I actually updated? Relieved Sadie and Steve are besties again? Hit in the feels by the ending? I'd love to read any and all thoughts! - Much love, Kappa.**


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